Zone 5 Planting Calendar (5a & 5b): Printable, by Month

Zone 5 is conventionally taken to average its last spring frost around April 30 and its first fall frost around October 10, giving roughly 163 frost-free days. Be aware that a hardiness zone is defined by winter minimum temperature, not by frost dates — these are widely-used approximations, not official USDA figures. Get your real dates from the NOAA freeze-date map or your county cooperative extension office.

Use the month-by-month table on this page. The pattern is: frost-tolerant crops like peas, spinach and radishes go in 6 to 2 weeks before April 30; warm-season crops like beans, zucchini and tomatoes go in 1 to 3 weeks after it; and cool-season crops get a second sowing about 10 to 12 weeks before October 10.

Yes. In zone 5, start tomato seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before April 30 or buy a seedling, then transplant 1 to 2 weeks after the last frost once nights stay above 50°F. With 163 frost-free days there is comfortable room for any variety, including large beefsteak types.

Two full rounds: a spring planting of cool-season crops, a summer planting of warm-season crops, and a fall sowing of greens and roots in the same beds.

Yes, in spring. A raised bed warms 2 to 3 weeks earlier than open ground, so you can bring the early sowings forward by up to two weeks. Autumn dates are unchanged, since the first frost arrives on the same day regardless of your setup.

Five degrees in the average coldest night of the year. Zone 5a averages -20 to -15°F at its coldest and zone 5b -15 to -10°F. The letter matters for perennials on the edge of winter hardiness. It does not change vegetable planting dates, which follow your frost dates — the calendar on this page applies to both halves.

Neither — the letter does not decide it. 5a and 5b differ only in how cold the coldest winter night gets, and tomatoes grow in summer, long after that night has passed. What matters is the length of your frost-free season. Within zone 5, Omaha, NE (5b) averages 185 frost-free days and Billings, MT (5b) only 156. Check the city table on this page, or enter your own frost dates in the calendar.

In zone 5, July plantings are: sow for a fall crop — carrot, kale, lettuce (leaf), peas and spinach; re-sow every 14 days — bush beans, carrot, kale, lettuce (leaf), radish and spinach. The July table gives the exact window for each. Cool-season sowings in July may bolt in the heat.

Sowings for a fall harvest in zone 5 start around June 24 with carrot and run to about August 27 with radish. Each date is counted back from the average first frost (October 10) by the crop's days to harvest plus two weeks, so a crop sown on time matures before the cold arrives. That puts the slowest crops in before midsummer: with the first frost in October, a fall carrot crop has to be sown while it still feels like spring.

Not as a download yet. The chart and the month-by-month tables on this page print cleanly — use your browser's Print command and the menus, ads and questions are left off the page. A downloadable version is on the way.