Garden Clock helps home gardeners in the United States plant on time. Type your town and you get its average last spring frost and first fall frost, plus the safer dates that tender plants need, turned into a planting calendar for the crops you actually grow.
Where the numbers come from
Frost dates are calculated from NOAA NCEI climate normals for 1991 to 2020, using the weather station nearest to your town. Planting windows for each crop follow common university extension-service timing: when to start seeds indoors, when to plant out, and when to sow a fall crop.
What to keep in mind
- A frost date is an average, not a promise. Any given year can come earlier or later, so treat the dates as a guide and watch your local forecast.
- Your own yard can differ from the nearest weather station because of elevation, shelter, cold air pockets and city heat.
- Garden Clock gives general guidance. Check your soil and your local extension office before making big planting decisions.
Corrections and questions
If you spot a mistake or a missing town, please tell us through the Contact page. We read every message and fix errors as quickly as we can.
Who is behind Garden Clock
Garden Clock is an independent gardening reference site written and maintained by the Garden Clock Editorial Team. We built it because most frost-date pages show a single number with no context, and gardeners deserve to know where a number comes from and how far to trust it.
How we write our guides
- Each guide starts from public sources such as university extension services and NOAA climate data, and we name those sources in the article.
- We explain disagreements between sources instead of picking one silently.
- We state what we could not confirm rather than guessing.
- We update articles when new data appears and show the date of the latest change.
Our full standards, including how we handle errors, are in the Editorial and Corrections Policy. Our Advertising Disclosure explains how the site is funded.
What Garden Clock is not
We are not a weather service and we do not give individual horticultural advice. For current conditions, use the National Weather Service, and for questions about your soil and local pests, contact your county extension office.