Fall Vegetable Planting Guide by Zone: Dates and Frost Math
Spring gets the attention, but fall is the easier season. By late August the squash vine borers are done for the year, cabbage worm pressure fades with the first cool nights, and the lettuce that bolted in June will sit happily in the bed until Thanksgiving. Frost improves half the fall lineup: kale, carrots, and Brussels sprouts convert starch to sugar when temperatures drop, which is why a November carrot tastes better than an August one.
The catch is that fall deadlines are unforgiving. Plant three weeks late in spring and you harvest three weeks late. Plant three weeks late in fall and the crop runs into cold soil and short days, stalls at half size, and never finishes. This guide covers the planting dates for zones 3 through 10, plus the math to adjust them for any crop on your seed rack.
If you want the spring side of this calendar, it’s in our when to plant vegetables by zone guide.
The Frost Math: Counting Back From First Frost
Every fall planting date comes from one formula:
Days to maturity + 14-day fall factor, counted back from your average first frost date.
The 14-day fall factor exists because seed packets assume spring conditions: lengthening days and warming soil. In fall you get the opposite, so everything grows slower. A “60-day” bean is a 74-day bean in September.
Worked example: fall broccoli in zone 7. Transplants need about 65 days to produce a head. Add 14 for the fall factor: 79 days. Zone 7’s average first frost is October 25. Count back 79 days and you land on August 7. That’s your transplant deadline. And since broccoli needs 5–6 weeks from seed to transplant size, seeds go in trays by late June or early July. (Our seed starting guide covers the indoor setup.)
Two adjustments to the raw math:
- The deadline is hard for frost-tender crops. Beans, cucumbers, and summer squash die at 32°F. If the count-back says August 22, August 22 is the deadline.
- The deadline is soft for hardy crops. Kale, spinach, and carrots shrug off frost, so their real constraint is day length. Once daylight drops below about 10 hours, growth mostly stops — crops hold in the garden like a walk-in refrigerator, but they don’t size up. Plant a hardy crop two weeks past its date and you get a smaller harvest, not a dead one.
First Frost Dates by Zone
These are the average first fall frost dates we use across the Garden.gg planting calendar. The planting window is when seeds and transplants go in the ground — indoor starts run 4–6 weeks ahead of it.
| Zone | Average first frost | Fall planting window |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | September 12 | late June – August 1 |
| 4 | September 15 | late June – early August |
| 5 | October 8 | mid-July – late August |
| 6 | October 15 | mid-July – early September |
| 7 | October 25 | late July – mid-September |
| 8 | November 15 | mid-August – early October |
| 9 | December 5 | late August – late October |
| 10 | December 31 (rarely freezes) | September – November |
Averages mean half of all years frost earlier. Treat the date as a planning anchor, not a promise, and keep row cover handy for the two weeks before it.
Zones 3-4: Quick Crops Only
First frost: September 12–15
The short-season zones get one fast fall round, not a full second garden. Skip fall broccoli and cauliflower transplants entirely — 79 days back from September 12 is late June, when your beds are still full of summer crops. The math doesn’t work.
What does work, with sow-by dates for zone 3 (add three days for zone 4):
- Turnips (50 days): sow by July 10
- Spinach (40 days): sow by July 20
- Baby-leaf lettuce (30 days): sow by July 30
- Radishes (28 days): sow by August 1
Garlic is the other fall job. Plant cloves in late September or early October, mulch heavily, and forget about them until spring.
Zones 5-6: The Classic Fall Garden
First frost: October 8 (zone 5), October 15 (zone 6)
This is the textbook fall garden: brassicas started indoors in early July (per our July planting guide), transplanted out in late July, direct-sown roots and greens behind them.
Deadlines for zone 5, with zone 6 running one week later:
- Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage transplants: in the ground by July 21 (zone 6: July 28)
- Carrots (58-day ‘Napoli’ type): sow by July 28
- Beets (55 days): sow by July 31
- Spinach (40 days): sow by August 15 (zone 6: August 22)
- Radishes (28 days): sow by August 27 (zone 6: September 3)
Kale transplants can go in through mid-August in both zones. It keeps producing well past first frost, so the count-back deadline barely applies. Garlic goes in during October, a week or two after the frost date.
Zone 7: The Best Fall Gardening Zone in the Country
First frost: October 25
That’s a strong claim, but look at the numbers. Zone 7 gets a 193-day season — long enough for a full summer garden and a full fall garden, without the heat that makes zones 8-9 fall planting a fight against 95°F soil. The zone 7 planting calendar has the complete crop-by-crop schedule; here are the fall deadlines that matter most.
Counting back from October 25:
- Cabbage transplants (70 days): in the ground by August 2
- Broccoli and cauliflower transplants (65 days): by August 7
- Carrots (‘Napoli’, 58 days): sow by August 14 — roots hold in the ground well past frost
- Beets (55 days): sow by August 17
- Bush beans (‘Provider’, 50 days): sow by August 22, and this one is a hard deadline
- Lettuce (45 days): succession sow through August 27
- Spinach (40 days): sow by September 1
- Radishes (28 days): sow as late as September 13
Kale transplants go in through the end of August. It survives temperatures in the teens, so it outlasts the calendar. And spinach sown a second time in late September won’t size up before winter, but it overwinters under row cover and explodes in March — the earliest harvest you’ll get all year.
Garlic: mid-October to early November, right around the frost date.
Zone 8: The Long Fall Season
First frost: November 15
Zone 8 fall gardening has one enemy, and it isn’t cold. It’s August. Brassica transplants that need to be in the ground by late August are going into soil that’s still 90°F, so shade cloth for the first two weeks isn’t optional. Get them through that and you’re rewarded with a 235-day season where the fall garden often outproduces the spring one. The zone 8 planting calendar has the full schedule.
Counting back from November 15:
- Determinate fall tomatoes (75 days): transplant by August 18
- Cabbage transplants (70 days): by August 23
- Broccoli and cauliflower transplants (65 days): by August 28
- Carrots (58 days): sow by September 4
- Beets (55 days): sow by September 7
- Bush beans (50 days): sow by September 12 — frost-tender, hard deadline
- Lettuce (45 days): sow through September 17
- Spinach (40 days): sow through September 22
- Radishes (28 days): sow as late as October 4
Garlic goes in mid-October. If your brassica starts aren’t going yet, start seeds indoors now — August’s transplant deadlines arrive faster than they look. The August planting guide covers the month those deadlines land in.
Zones 9-10: Fall Is the Main Event
First frost: December 5 (zone 9); zone 10 rarely freezes
In the hottest zones, fall isn’t a second season. It’s the good one. Summer is the dormant period you survive; September through February is when lettuce, brassicas, and even tomatoes actually thrive.
Zone 9 deadlines, counting back from December 5:
- Fall tomatoes: transplant August through early September
- Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage transplants: by September 17
- Lettuce: sow through October 7
- Radishes: sow as late as October 24
Zone 10 gardeners can mostly ignore the count-back math and plant cool-season crops continuously from late September through February. The constraint is heat at the start of the window, not frost at the end.
Cold-Hardy Crops Ranked
Knowing what survives which frost decides what you plant late and what you pull early.
Survive a hard freeze (down to the teens °F): kale (‘Winterbor’ handles 10–15°F), spinach (15–20°F, overwinters under cover), collards, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, mâche, planted garlic. Carrot tops die around 20°F but the roots are fine in the ground under a few inches of mulch — many gardeners in zones 5-7 harvest them all winter.
Survive light frost (upper 20s to 32°F): lettuce (damage starts below about 28°F), beets, chard, broccoli, cabbage, radishes, turnips, bok choy, cilantro, peas. These buy you 2–4 weeks past the frost date, especially with row cover.
Dead at 32°F: beans, cucumbers, summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, basil. For these, the count-back date is absolute, and one radiational-cooling night ends the discussion.
Season Extension Without a Greenhouse
Two tools cover 90% of what home gardeners need:
Floating row cover. Lightweight fabric adds 2–4°F of protection; the heavy grade adds 4–8°F. Drape it directly on greens or over short hoops, pin the edges with soil staples. That’s enough to carry lettuce and spinach 3–4 weeks past your frost date.
Low tunnels. Half-inch EMT conduit or 9-gauge wire hoops every 3–4 feet, greenhouse plastic over the top, clipped or buried at the edges. A low tunnel adds roughly 10°F plus wind protection, which effectively moves your garden one zone south. Vent it on sunny days above 40°F or you’ll cook the crop you’re protecting. In zones 6 and warmer, a low tunnel keeps spinach, kale, and mâche harvestable all winter.
When Is the First Frost in Zone 7?
The average first fall frost in zone 7 is October 25. Actual dates in a given year commonly range from mid-October to early November, and cold pockets (valley floors, low spots at the bottom of a slope) frost a week or more ahead of the neighborhood average. Plan your count-back math against October 25, then keep row cover staged from about October 10. The zone 7 planting calendar applies these dates across 49 crops automatically.
What Can I Still Plant in September in Zone 8?
More than you’d think, since zone 8’s first frost holds off until November 15. Through the first week of September: beets, carrots (for smaller roots), and bush beans. Through mid-September: lettuce. Through September 22: spinach. All month and beyond: radishes, turnips, bok choy, mustard greens, cilantro, and kale transplants. Hold garlic until mid-October. The full month-by-month breakdown is on the zone 8 planting calendar.
Track Your Fall Planting
The count-back math above is the part most gardeners skip, and it’s the part that decides whether the fall garden produces. Do it once per crop, write down the dates, and treat the frost-tender deadlines as immovable.
Or let software do the counting. Check your zone’s full schedule:
- Zone 7 Planting Calendar — Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas
- Zone 8 Planting Calendar — Austin, New Orleans, Sacramento
- All zone calendars — zones 2 through 11
And if you’re planting this month, the August guide picks up where the July guide left off.
Track every fall crop from seed to harvest with Garden.gg — free garden planner with zone-aware planting calendars, frost date tracking, and harvest analytics.