Zone 8 Planting Calendar: What to Plant and When

In Zone 8 the thing that limits you is not frost, it is summer heat. Winter lows bottom out around 10°F to 20°F, the last spring frost is usually behind you by mid to late March, and the first fall frost holds off until early or mid November, so you are working with well over 200 frost-free days and closer to 260 in the milder 8b half. The real job is getting spring crops sized up and picked before July and August cook them, then coming back in late summer for a fall crop that often turns out better than the spring one. This Zone 8 planting calendar sets out the timing for both halves of that year, month by month.

Zone 8 planting calendar

Use this month-by-month schedule as your Zone 8 planting calendar. Because Zone 8 has both a spring and a fall growing season, you will notice cool crops appear twice: once in late winter and again in late summer for a fall harvest. Start indoors dates give warm crops a head start; direct sow and transplant dates assume your soil has warmed and frost has passed.

Zone 8 planting schedule at a glance

The Zone 8 planting schedule runs on two engines. From late December through February you start seeds indoors for the long-season warm crops, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and onions, while peas, spinach, and radish go straight into the ground under a little cover. Transplants move out once the March frost date passes, and the main summer harvest runs from June into September, with okra and southern peas carrying the hottest weeks. Fall sowing starts in July and August, well before the weather feels like fall, and that is what gives Zone 8 gardeners greens and roots to cut all winter.

Month	Start indoors	Transplant / plant out	Direct sow outdoors	Harvest
January	Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, onions, celery	·	Peas, spinach, radish under cover	Kale, collards, carrots, leeks
February	Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce	Onion sets, broccoli, cabbage	Peas, radish, spinach, arugula, carrots	Spinach, kale, overwintered greens
March	Cucumbers, squash, melons, basil	Broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, kale, potatoes	Beets, carrots, radish, chard, peas	Lettuce, radish, spinach, peas
April	Okra, sweet potato slips, late basil	Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers	Beans, corn, squash, cucumbers, melons	Lettuce, peas, radish, broccoli, chard
May	·	Sweet potatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons	Beans, corn, okra, squash, cucumbers, southern peas	Spring lettuce, peas, beets, carrots, cabbage
June	·	Late peppers, sweet potatoes	Southern peas, okra, heat-tolerant beans, corn	Squash, cucumbers, early tomatoes, beans
July	Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower for fall	·	Okra, southern peas, late corn, pumpkins	Tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, beans
August	Lettuce, kale, chard for fall	Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower for fall	Beans, carrots, beets, turnips for fall	Tomatoes, peppers, okra, melons
September	·	Broccoli, cabbage, kale, lettuce, collards	Spinach, radish, carrots, beets, peas, mustard	Late tomatoes, peppers, southern peas, okra
October	·	Garlic, lettuce, cabbage transplants	Spinach, radish, arugula, kale, turnips, peas	Fall broccoli, greens, radish, beans
November	·	Garlic, onion sets	Spinach, radish, hardy greens under cover	Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, carrots, kale
December	Onions, early tomatoes (indoors, warm)	·	Garlic, spinach under cover	Kale, collards, carrots, leeks, cabbage

Cool crops such as lettuce, spinach, peas, and brassicas do best in the shoulders of the year, spring and fall, while heat lovers such as okra, southern peas, sweet potatoes, and peppers carry the hot summer months. For exact sowing windows tuned to your address, cross-check this schedule against your local frost dates using the ZIP code planting calendar.

The best crops for Zone 8

Zone 8 is generous enough to grow almost anything, but the standout Zone 8 vegetables are the ones that make the most of both the long warm season and the mild winters. Here are the crops worth building your garden around.

Warm-season vegetables

The long summer suits heat lovers. Grow tomatoes, peppers, okra, southern peas, sweet potatoes, squash, and cucumbers. In Zone 8 you start seeds indoors for tomatoes and peppers about 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, which in practice means January into February, so the transplants are hardened off and ready to go out once the March frost date passes. Getting them in the ground that early is what lets them set fruit before the midsummer heat shuts pollination down. Eggplant and melons follow the same timing and take the heat in stride.

Cool-season greens and roots

Zone 8 winters are mild enough that greens and roots keep going right through the cold months, and the fall sowing is the one most gardeners underrate. Plant kale, lettuce, spinach, collards, radish, carrots, and peas in both spring and fall. Beets and broccoli go in alongside them. Many of these overwinter and give you salads and roots to pull in January, and the fall crop usually comes out better than the spring one because it matures into cooling weather instead of racing the heat.

Beans and quick crops

Snap and pole beans flourish in late spring and again in late summer, and fast radishes and greens fill in the gaps between longer crops.

Herbs and flowers

Rosemary, thyme, oregano, and basil take the Zone 8 heat without complaint, and the woody perennial herbs usually come through winter outdoors here. For the annual herbs it pays to start seeds indoors in February and set them out with the tomatoes. Round out the garden with culinary herbs, and browse the full range of vegetable seeds to build your Zone 8 planting plan.

When are the frost dates in Zone 8?

Frost dates are the two turning points every Zone 8 gardener plans around. The average last spring frost falls around mid to late March, which is your green light to plant warm crops outdoors. The average first fall frost arrives around mid November, which marks when tender crops need to be harvested or protected. The stretch between those two dates, about 240 to 260 days, is your frost-free growing window, and it is one of the longest in the country.

Here is the important part: these are typical, zone-wide averages. Your actual frost dates depend on your exact location, elevation, and how close you are to the coast, and they can shift by two or three weeks. Do not guess. Enter your ZIP code in our interactive planting calendar to get the exact average last and first frost dates for your specific spot, then use those dates to fine-tune the calendar above.

Zone 8a vs 8b: last and first frost dates

Zone 8 is split into two half-zones, 8a and 8b, and they sit about 5°F apart on winter lows. That small gap moves the frost dates by a couple of weeks on each end of the year. Zone 8b is the milder half: it warms up sooner in spring, holds off frost longer in fall, and ends up with a noticeably longer season than 8a.

Treat the numbers below as zone-wide averages, not a promise. Elevation, distance from the coast, and even a sheltered south-facing yard can shift your real dates by two or three weeks in either direction, so pair these with your local ZIP code dates before you commit a tray of transplants.

Subzone	Average last spring frost	Average first fall frost	Growing season
Zone 8a	mid to late March (about March 20 to 31)	early to mid November (about Nov 5 to 15)	about 220 to 240 days
Zone 8b	early to mid March (about March 10 to 20)	mid to late November (about Nov 15 to 30)	about 245 to 265 days

What does USDA Zone 8 mean?

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 8 describes the average annual coldest winter temperature in your area, which for Zone 8 runs between 10°F and 20°F. The USDA splits it further into Zone 8a (10 to 15°F) and Zone 8b (15 to 20°F). This number tells you how much winter cold your perennials, shrubs, and trees can survive, so it is the figure to check when you buy a perennial rated for a certain zone.

One common mix-up: your hardiness zone is about winter lows, not frost dates. It tells you what will survive the winter, but not exactly when your last spring or first fall frost lands. For planting timing, always pair your zone with your local frost dates from the ZIP tool.

Find your exact zone

Zone 8 sits right in the middle of the hardiness scale, with slightly cooler neighbors on one side and warmer ones on the other. If your winters run colder than the lows above, you may be in Zone 7. If they run milder and nearly frost-free, check the Zone 9 planting calendar. Matching your true zone to your local frost dates is the surest way to plant at exactly the right time.