Zone 13 Planting Calendar: What to Plant and When

Zone 13 sits at the very top of the USDA scale, and it does not behave like the rest of the country. Winter lows here average 60 to 70F, so frost never shows up and the soil never shuts down. In the United States that means Hawaii, the Florida Keys and the warmest pockets of south Florida, along with tropical territories such as Puerto Rico, which is why so few gardeners have ever needed reliable Zone 13 information. This Zone 13 planting calendar is built the way a tropical garden actually runs: around heat, humidity and the wet and dry seasons rather than frost dates, month by month.

Zone 13 at a glance

What does USDA Zone 13 mean?

Because Zone 13 is so rare, it is worth being clear about what it actually is. USDA hardiness zones are based on the average coldest winter temperature an area experiences. Each zone spans a 10-degree band, and the numbers climb as the climate warms. Zone 13 sits at the very top of the scale, defined by an average annual minimum temperature of 60 to 70F. In plain terms, even your coldest night of the year stays warm enough that frost essentially never happens.

That is a fundamentally different situation from most of the country. In cold zones, the whole calendar revolves around the last spring frost and first fall frost. In Zone 13 there are no frost dates to plan around at all. Your USDA zone here tells you that winter cold will never limit you, which is why tender tropical plants that would die anywhere else thrive outdoors year-round. What your zone number does not tell you is how intense your summer heat and rainy season get, and in Zone 13 those are the real forces that shape your garden. So instead of frost, this calendar is organized around heat and the wet and dry seasons.

Zone 13 planting calendar

This is a warm-climate Zone 13 planting schedule. Since frost is never a factor, the month-by-month plan is built around temperature and moisture. Heat-loving tropical crops carry the hottest, often wettest months, while tender leafy greens and cool-season vegetables do best during your milder, drier stretch. Use this table as your map for what to plant in Zone 13 each month.

Zone 13 planting schedule at a glance

Read the year as two halves instead of a spring and a fall. Through the cooler, drier stretch that runs roughly from November into March, you start seeds indoors for tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, move brassicas and lettuce out into the beds, and direct sow carrots, beets and radishes. As heat and rain build from about April onward, the planting schedule hands the beds over to okra, southern peas, sweet potato and other crops that shrug off humidity, and the cool-season sowings pick up again in late summer for a fall and winter harvest. There is no month here without something to plant and something to pick.

The rhythm here is the reverse of a cold-climate garden. Your cooler, drier months from late fall into early spring are the prime window for tender crops such as lettuce, brassicas, and root vegetables, while the hot, humid, often rainy summer belongs to tough tropical producers like okra, southern peas, sweet potato, and Malabar spinach. During the wettest, hottest weeks, many Zone 13 gardeners scale back and rely on only the most heat-proof crops.

The best crops for Zone 13

In a tropical zone like this one, heat tolerance beats everything. The best Zone 13 vegetables, herbs, and flowers are the ones that laugh at humidity and hold up through a wet, blazing summer.

Tropical and heat-loving vegetables

Okra, southern peas, sweet potato, eggplant, hot peppers, and yard-long beans are the reliable summer producers. For fruiting crops, choose heat-set tomato seeds, pepper seeds, and cucumber seeds, and add melons and squash while it is warm. Explore everything in our vegetable seeds collection.

Cool-season greens for your milder months

When temperatures ease in your drier season, grow tender crops that cannot take tropical summer heat. Sow lettuce seeds, kale seeds, chard, and quick radishes and carrots during this window for the freshest salads of the year.

Herbs and flowers for the tropics

Basil, lemongrass, and other tropical-friendly herb seeds flourish nearly year-round. For pollinators and color that shrug off the heat, plant tough flower seeds such as zinnias, marigolds, and sunflowers to keep bees working your fruiting crops.

When are the frost dates in Zone 13?

In Zone 13 there are effectively no frost dates. This is the warmest USDA zone, frost-free and tropical, with average winter lows of 60 to 70F, so the last spring frost and first fall frost that anchor most planting calendars simply do not exist here. That frees you to plant in every month of the year, and it shifts your attention to heat and rainfall instead of cold.

Your exact conditions still depend on your specific island, elevation, and how much rain your area gets. To pull the season data and any relevant dates for your precise location, enter your ZIP code in our interactive planting calendar tool. It returns your exact local information in seconds, which is the best way to tailor this Zone 13 planting schedule to your own garden.

The year-round growing rhythm in Zone 13

With no frost to fence off the season, the thing that actually limits a Zone 13 garden is heat, and in most of the zone the rain that comes with it. Daytime temperatures in the hot months push tender crops into bolting, bitterness and disease long before any calendar date tells them to stop, and heavy rain on top of that brings fungal problems and rots seed in the ground. So the year inverts. The cooler, drier stretch is the main vegetable season, and the hot, wet stretch belongs to crops built for it.

That inversion changes how you use seed trays. You start seeds indoors here not to escape cold but to get transplants ready ahead of the good window and to protect small seedlings from downpours and pests. In practice most Zone 13 gardeners start seeds indoors for tomatoes, peppers and eggplant roughly six to eight weeks before the cool season settles in, which usually means sowing trays in the late summer and early fall so the plants are already established when the pleasant months arrive. Exact timing shifts by island and by region, since the wet season lands at different times across Hawaii, south Florida and Puerto Rico, so treat the months below as the shape of the year rather than fixed dates.

Not in Zone 13? Find your zone

Zone 13 is the warmest zone there is, so if your winters run even slightly cooler than the 60 to 70F described here, you are likely in the next zone down. Check the Zone 12 planting calendar for a warm, frost-free climate that sits just below Zone 13 on the scale. Whichever zone fits your yard, run your ZIP code through the planting calendar tool for your exact local dates.