Vegetable Gardening Blog

Texas spans four USDA hardiness zones and over 800 miles north to south. A planting date that works in Amarillo will get your seedlings killed in San Antonio — and vice versa. Here's how to get your timing right.

Ninety frost-free days sounds like a prison sentence for your garden. It's actually plenty — if you plan like it matters.

Colorado gives you 300 days of sunshine and about 90 of them without frost. Choose your vegetables accordingly.

Gardening above 5,000 feet means dealing with physics that actively work against your tomatoes.

You moved to the Mountain West for the views. Nobody warned you about the June snow.

October in the Northeast garden is bittersweet. The tomatoes are done, the first frost has taken the basil, and there's a chill in the morning air that says the season is over. But it's not — not quite.

Growing tomatoes in the Northeast is an act of optimism. You're betting that the 140-ish frost-free days between late May and mid-October (see our [Northeast planting guide](/blog/when-to-plant-vegetables-in-the-northeast/) for exact dates) are enough to ripen fruit on a tropical plant that would prefer to live in Central America.

Spring in the Northeast isn't a date on the calendar — it's a negotiation. One week it's 65°F and you're in a t-shirt turning compost. The next week it's 28°F and your tulips are regretting every decision they've made.

Not every vegetable belongs in a Northeast garden. Some crops practically beg for our cool springs and crisp autumns, while others need more coddling than a tropical houseplant in January.

You moved to New England or the Mid-Atlantic, bought some seed packets, and now you're staring at the back wondering what 'after last frost' actually means when your frost dates swing by six weeks depending on whether you're in coastal Connecticut or northern Vermont.