Zone 6 Planting Calendar

Zone 6 hands you roughly six months between frosts, and the gardens that do best here keep every one of those months working. Winter lows bottom out around -10 to 0F, the last spring frost usually clears by mid-April, and the first fall frost holds off until mid to late October, which leaves room for a cool-season spring, a full run of summer heat lovers, and a second cool-season crop before the ground freezes. This Zone 6 planting calendar walks through that year month by month: what to sow under lights, what goes into the ground and when, which crops are worth the space, and how to pin down the frost dates for your own address.

Zone 6 at a glance

Zone 6 planting calendar

Here is what to plant in each month in Zone 6. "Start indoors" means sowing seeds under lights or on a warm windowsill several weeks before they go outside. "Transplant / plant out" is when those seedlings, or hardy young plants, go into the garden. "Direct sow" is seed you put straight into the ground. Use this as a Zone 6 planting schedule and adjust by a week or two to match your own last and first frost dates.

Zone 6 planting schedule at a glance

The Zone 6 year comes in three pushes. From late winter through March you start seeds indoors for onions, brassicas, tomatoes, and peppers, while the hardy crops go into the ground across April. Tender crops wait until frost danger has fully passed, which for most Zone 6 gardeners is mid-May, and they carry the harvest from July straight through October. The third push runs from July into early September, when you sow again for fall greens and roots, with garlic going in around October to overwinter.

Month	Start indoors	Transplant / plant out	Direct sow outdoors	Harvest
January	Onions, leeks, celery, early lettuce (under lights)	-	Garlic can still be mulched; plan beds	Stored roots, kale and leeks left in the garden
February	Onions, leeks, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, celery	-	-	Overwintered spinach, kale, mache in cold frames
March	Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, brassicas, herbs	Onions, leeks, hardened-off brassicas late month	Peas, spinach, radish, arugula under cover	First cutting of overwintered greens
April	Warm-season transplants (tomato, pepper) continue; cucumbers, squash late	Broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions, kale	Carrots, beets, peas, radish, chard, potatoes	Spring radish, arugula, early lettuce
May	Melons, cucumbers, squash, basil (early May)	Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant after mid-May frost	Beans, corn, cucumbers, squash, carrots, dill	Lettuce, spinach, radish, green onions, peas
June	Fall brassica starts (broccoli, cabbage) late month	Warm-season stragglers, sweet potato slips	Beans, corn, cucumbers, summer squash, basil	Peas, lettuce, spinach, garlic scapes, early zucchini
July	Fall broccoli, cabbage, kale, lettuce for transplant	Fall brassica transplants late month	Beans, beets, carrots, fall lettuce, cilantro	Cucumbers, zucchini, early tomatoes, beans, garlic
August	Lettuce, spinach for fall	Fall brassicas, lettuce early month	Spinach, lettuce, radish, turnips, kale, peas	Tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, melons, corn
September	Windowsill herbs	Garlic prep beds	Spinach, lettuce, radish, arugula, mache, cover crops	Tomatoes, peppers, winter squash, beans, fall greens
October	-	Garlic cloves for next year	Garlic, spinach and mache to overwinter	Pumpkins, winter squash, root crops, kale, chard
November	-	-	Mulch garlic; plant cover crops early	Kale, leeks, carrots, Brussels sprouts, stored roots
December	Plan next season; start onions late month	-	-	Cold-frame greens, stored crops, overwintered kale

Nudge the whole schedule earlier if you are at the warm edge of Zone 6 (or use season extenders like row cover and cold frames), and a little later if you are at the cold, high-elevation edge.

The best crops for Zone 6

Zone 6's long season means you can grow almost anything, from quick spring greens to long-season heat lovers. These are the crops that reward you most here, each linked to the matching seed collection:

Cool-season crops for spring and fall

Zone 6's cool shoulder seasons are ideal for leafy and root crops. Sow lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, and carrots in early spring, then plant a second round in late summer for a fall harvest that often tastes sweeter after light frost. Radish is the fastest thing you can put in the ground here, beets and chard hold up at both ends of the season, and broccoli started in July and set out in August usually heads up before the first hard freeze.

Warm-season crops for summer

The long, warm summers here are made for tomatoes and tomatillos, peppers, beans, cucumbers, and squash. In Zone 6 you start seeds indoors for tomatoes and peppers about 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, which usually means sowing in March and setting the plants out in mid-May once the nights have settled. Direct sow beans and corn once the soil has warmed, and give cucumbers and summer squash room to run. Our guides to growing tomatoes and peppers from seed cover the indoor timing in more detail. For the easiest way to cover a whole summer bed, a mixed vegetable variety pack gives you many of these at once.

Herbs and flowers

Most culinary herbs thrive through the Zone 6 summer, and hardy perennials like thyme, oregano, chives, and mint come back year after year. Basil is the one to hold indoors until mid-May, since it sulks in cold soil. Interplant flowers such as marigold and zinnia to bring in pollinators and keep the whole garden productive.

When are the frost dates in Zone 6?

Your last spring frost is the average date after which a hard frost is unlikely, so it is your green light for setting out tender crops like tomatoes and peppers. Your first fall frost is the average date in autumn when frost typically returns, which sets the deadline for your last harvest and for fall crops to mature. In Zone 6, the last frost usually lands around mid-April and the first fall frost around mid to late October, but these shift by weeks depending on exactly where you live.

Because a single zone can span very different microclimates, do not rely on a single date. Enter your ZIP code in our interactive planting calendar to get your exact local last and first frost dates and a sowing schedule built around them. That is the most reliable way to time your Zone 6 garden.

Zone 6a vs 6b: last and first frost dates

Zone 6 is split into two half zones, 6a and 6b, and they sit about 5F apart in average winter low. 6b is the milder half of the pair, so its last spring frost tends to clear earlier and its first fall frost arrives later, which adds a couple of weeks of usable season over 6a. In practice, 6a gardeners are waiting until mid to late April for the last frost and seeing the first fall frost in mid-October, while 6b gardeners are often planting hardy crops in early April and still picking into late October.

These are averages across a wide band of the country, not dates for your particular yard. A garden on a north slope, in a low frost pocket, or at higher elevation can run two weeks behind the numbers below, and a city lot or a spot near a large lake can run two weeks ahead. Use your subzone as a bracket, then confirm it against local frost records and what you see in your own garden.

Subzone	Average last spring frost	Average first fall frost	Growing season
Zone 6a	Mid to late April (about April 15 to 25)	Mid-October (about Oct 10 to 20)	About 170 to 185 days
Zone 6b	Early to mid April (about April 5 to 15)	Late October (about Oct 20 to 31)	About 190 to 205 days

What does USDA Zone 6 mean?

USDA hardiness zones are based on the average coldest winter temperature in an area. Zone 6 means winter lows typically bottom out around -10 to 0F. That number tells you which perennials, shrubs, and trees can survive your winter, so it is mainly a measure of winter hardiness. It does not directly tell you your frost dates or how long your growing season is, which is why annual vegetable timing depends on the last and first frost dates above rather than the zone number alone.

Not sure this is your zone?

If your winters feel colder or milder than the ranges above, you may be in a neighboring zone. Colder gardeners should check the Zone 5 planting calendar, and warmer gardeners the Zone 7 planting calendar. When in doubt, look up your zone and exact frost dates with your ZIP code in the planting calendar tool.