What is YOUR color?
The Struggle
Trying to explain when to prepare your garden, start seeds inside, and plant outside is so confusing! That is because the timing is different for each location. When to plant is all based on your “last frost date”. This is the average date of the last spring frost in your area. After this date it is generally safe to transplant frost-sensitive plants and seeds.
DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN A CHARLIE BROWN CARTOON, AND I JUST SAID “WAH, WAP, WAH, WO, WAH?” That’s because this is CONFUSING!!! Don’t worry, I’ve made it simple!
A Simple, Easy Way
In hopes of making it simpler, I have created the Planting By Color system. It’s SO EASY!!! Then check Planting By Color website for your color group’s schedule, and find out what you plant, week by week.
Keep in mind that these groups include a 2-week span, and are based on average temperatures. You may still need to adjust your planting times depending on weather–if you’ve had an extended winter, you may want to wait longer. If you’ve had a mild winter and an early spring, you may want to plant a little sooner.
Find Your Color By Location
Here is a list of locations–these are weather stations, not necessarily the largest cities or towns. Many times you’ll see AP, which means airport. Look through the entire section for your state and find the CLOSEST location with the MOST SIMILAR weather patterns.
Find Your Color By Frost Date
| Spring Color | Dates | Spring Color | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| White Group | February 14-28 | Yellow Group | April 16-30 |
| Pink Group | March 1-15 | Green Group | May 1-15 |
| Red Group | March 16-31 | Blue Group | May 16-31 |
| Orange Group | April 1-15 | Violet Group | June 1-15 |
| Fall Color | Dates | Fall Color | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purple Group | September 16-30 | Navy Group | November 1-15 |
| Maroon Group | October 1-15 | Olive Group | November 16-30 |
| Brown Group | October 16-31 | Goldenrod Group | December 1-15 |
Go here for a printable list of frost dates and colors.
Thank you so much. 🙂
Terri–Done! http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/frost_dates.html
Vinc–this deserves it’s own post! I realize I have this information scattered, but I’ll find a way to put it all in one place.
Jenny–yes, you may still have snow when the schedule recommends to start seeds inside. The question is not how bad the weather is, it’s how bad is it compared to a typical season. If you’re getting snow now and that’s very unusual for you, go ahead and delay starting by a couple of weeks. But most seeds grow inside for 8-12 weeks, so there is plenty of time for the conditions to improve outside.
I hope its ok to post this here. I am in south central Saskatchewan, in the blue zone. I am getting the schedule for starting seeds and planting outdoors BUT my entire garden is still under 18 – 24 inches of snow. I can’t even see any portion of my square foot boxes. So, do I change my color group? Still start the seeds indoors it is suggested? Or, stall everything?
hej emily
thnx for the info, just build my own square foot garden box. Im going to plant my veggies tommorow.
What do you suggest:
1. Start with seeds
2. Start with plants
Emily, I tried printing the color charts and for some reason I can only get half of them to print. Is there a way for me to print both spring color chart and fall color chart (I’m trying to keep it handy for my DH who is an even worse computer dummy than I am) lol.
Thanks again for all your help. 🙂
The trick is to find your last frost date, then compare it to the chart. If you can ask around locally you might have a better idea of when is usually the last hard frost of the season. Typically tomatoes get planted two weeks later, so another way is to ask when it’s safe to plant tomatoes, go back two weeks, and that’s your date.
I found this link: http://www.gardenweb.com/zones/europe/hze3.html which might show what zone you are in, and this one shows the average last frost dates for each zone: http://www.emilycompost.com/zones.htm
If you combine these, my best guess is that you are in the yellow group.
Hey like youre site, im planning to begin with square foot gardening. Now i wanted to see what colour i have but i live in Belgium(Europe) so i dont know. Maybe you can help me with this problem…
Ty
Emily thank you so much for your info. I love the site and can’t wait to get started! 🙂
Terri–you can adjust it by going to any email and clicking the link at the bottom. However, your spring frost date can be different just 20 miles apart, so you might still have the correct group.
Emily, I’m recommending you for sainthood! Thank you for all your hard work.
Emily, I did your color chart, and found that I am yellow in the Spring and brown in the Fall. That’s what I used to sign up for your newsletter. Watching our local news last night, our weather man said the average time for our last frost here is around the 15th of May. How do I go about changing my color so I get the correct newsletter up dates from you?
Excellent! Seems like a silly question, but I really wasn’t sure how long to wait between plantings. Thanks so much!
Trudie–Yes, to stagger I simply start planting some squares on the earliest possible date, and then plant every week or two weeks until I have all my squares planted.
Hi! I absolutely adore your site. So much information, but easy to access and find what you need. We just moved and are in the process of figuring out our garden space so that we can get started! I noticed on your current plan you have allowed for staggering your harvest a bit. How do you go about that? Do you just adjust your planting dates? I worry about getting things started/in the ground too early or late. Thanks!
It looks like you live near Chandler, AZ and the colors are n/a and n/a. That probably means you do not have any frost, and can garden all winter long! But I’m also guessing your summers are too hot to grow much. You would garden starting in the late summer/fall, through the winter, and then in the spring until it gets too hot. If you go here you will find a link for growing in Arizona.
I live in Queen Creek, AZ. Do you know what my color would be?
http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/building-buying-cost-comparison/
/updated-raised-garden-bed-cost-comparison/
I have always wanted to garden efficiently and with the best results, can’t wait to get started!
The trick is to find your frost date, and then find where it fits in my chart. http://www.overthegardengate.net/garden/frostsurvey.asp According to this link, your spring frost date would be between April 15 and 30, which puts you in the Yellow group.
http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/main/weather1-result.asp This website says the spring frost for Ashford is in late April (again, Yellow) and the fall dates are mid November (Navy or Olive).
Olivia–the dates you are seeing (Oct 16-31) is the average date of the last frost–which means all plants have to be sown and grown before that date. Some hardy and semi-hardy plants can grow after it gets cold, but the shorter days and less intense light doesn’t promote quick growth. I’m afraid that since this was the first year of putting it together, the fall planting season for us (Brown) was about 1/2 over by the time I had everything set up. It’s not too late to plant garlic for next year, though!
Hi Emily! I am confused about my Fall planting dates. I am in the brown group, and the above chart says planting dates are October 16th – 31st. I put it on my calendar so I would be sure not to miss it. Now I am receiving e-mails from you that say that if I’m in the brown group it’s too late to plant! What happened??? :o( I hope I haven’t really missed it! Our summer garden did HORRIBLY, and I was hoping to make up for it with a good fall one! :o) Thanks for any advice you can give.
Hi
Love your site and am seriously considering getting your ebooks to help me be more successful with the veg next year.
However, I live in the UK (Canterbury in Kent to be exact) so I’m not sure how to find my colour via your chart.
Would love some help. Thanks
Blessings,
Amanda
Hi!
I just moved from Kaysville, Utah to Gilbert, Arizona. I used your charts in Kaysville and had fantastic results. I went on today to see if you had a color for the Gilbert/Phoenix area, but it say N/A. I was wondering if you have a close idea of what color the area would be. Thanks so much!!
Celeste
Well, my colors based on average years are yellow and maroon. But what do you do if you have summers like this year? We had only a handful of days over 70.
I have 2 garden areas, one gets the morning sun, until about 2pm, the other gets the afternoon sun until around 6pm. I currently have the tomatoes in the morning sun and the cabbages/spinach in the afternoon sun. I don’t know if it is the correct thing to do though, I have only gotten 6 cherry tomatoes off of 5 bushes all summer. Would it be better to put the tomatoes in the afternoon sun?
Michelle, I will answer your question here. That way others in your area can find it more easily!
I opened the new Excel doc, but there doesn’t seem to be any color ratings for most of southern California. We’re moving to Tustin, close to Santa Anna, close to Tustin, semi-close to Costa Mesa and Garden Grove 45 minutes away from LA and none of those cities are listed. Suggestions for color groups?
If you are already on the list, you need to go to the email I sent yesterday and click on the link at the bottom to edit your settings. Edit your profile, and it has a place to add the Fall Color.
I love what you do here and found your spring planting guide very useful. How do I add the fall emails? I can’t figure out how to add it – the newsletter Sign Up just says there is an error because I am already in the system.
I recently found this site and loved it! I considered using it as a reference, but decided to just give folks a list with the colors directly on it. But, you can use that site to find your date and then reference the tables to know what Planting By Color group you fall into. Thanks!
To find your frost dates in the USA, start here. Pick your state, then your nearest weather station. Your frost data will be near the bottom of the page.
http://www.climate-charts.com/USA-climate.html
This has lots and lots of weather data, not just frost dates.
http://www.climate-charts.com is the starting place for the world.
http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/Planting-by-color.htm Here you will see Farmington (Green/Maroon), Salt Lake (Yellow/Brown) and Ogden (Yellow/Brown). One of those will probably work for you.
Thanks for sending the link to your fall color guide. I can’t find anything that is even close to my area on the list. I live in Kaysville, UT. There are no wasatch front cities listed. I know that we have a USU station right here because we have the USU agriculture station near me and the UT house. What do you recommend? We were a green in the spring, but I’m not sure about the fall. Thanks for your help.
I am very excited to hear about the fall planting schedule. Thanks a lot and keep up with the hard work 🙂
Go here and follow the directions. I should have some resources that will help you. Since you live in CA, it’s possible that you can still follow a color schedule–it’s just not going to be based on your frost date.
Hi! There’s no color for my frost date(s). I live near Pomona Fairplex in California and the middle frost date is Jan. 19 and the top frost date is Mar. 12.
What now?
I found this chart for Canada. Probably not all inclusive, but it had Yorkton on it! Your date is May 23, so your color is blue.
Hi, I cannot determine my color, I clicked on N. Dakota and it just keeps saying the page is not available. I live in south central Saskatchewan, Canada, about two hours north, near Yorkton, SK. Is there another way I can find out which zone I am in?
Thanks!
Your color is to be determined. I’m working on developing a planting schedule for folks like you! –Emily
Umm, there’s no color for our location????
Our spring dates could start anywhere from Dec 16 – Jan 30. We are Arizona Zone 9.
Any clue what our “color” would be?
It is almost never too late to plant something! What you want to look at is your first frost date. Remember that chart I sent you to where you figured out which group you are in? The other set of dates is when it freezes in your area. Get a calendar, mark that date and work backwards. See how many days you have–then choose plants and varieties that will harvest in that much time. You may not be able to grow tomatoes or potatoes, but you certainly have time for lots of lettuce, carrots, beets, herbs, spinach, and more!
Still working on this! Just sit tight for now. 🙂
Help! My frost date is Feb 26 and it’s not on the color wheel 🙁 I live in Watson, Louisiana-close to Baton Rouge 🙂
Thanks!!
Aimee
I am in the yellow group (thought I was in the green group…I live in NW Ohio). But I am getting a very late start and was wondering if it was too late to plant anything now.
I know you’re red, because I know the geography. Everyone else has to look it up on the chart! 🙂
live in st. george utah ….. what color….
Either Red or earlier than red. I know I’ve got a bunch of readers who can plant year round or even earlier, so I’m working on a system for you. Hopefully this fall, or next spring at the latest.
live in central FL…RED?
Do a little dance and shout “Woo Hoo!” You can garden all year round! You probably want to consider if you have a wet and dry season, and a semi-cool versus really-hot season. Grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant when it’s hot and dry. Grow peas, cabbage, spinach, and broccoli when it’s cool. Definitely look for your local extension office http://www.extension.org. They can provide region-specific information for you.