How to Create a Planting Schedule for Your Climate

A gentle guide to timing your garden perfectly.

Gardening isn’t about doing everything in one frantic burst the moment the weather warms.

It’s about rhythm — understanding what each plant wants, what your climate allows, and how to give your garden the longest, most abundant season possible.

If you’re planting everything on one random weekend in May, you’re missing out on weeks — sometimes months — of harvests.

Today I’ll walk you through exactly how to build a simple, elegant planting schedule that works for your climate… and how Embrace can do all of this automatically for you.

Why Planting at the Right Time Matters

When plants are planted too early, cold weather can shock or kill them.
When plants are planted too late, you lose weeks of harvest you could’ve enjoyed.

Every plant has its own sweet spot.

• Tomatoes want warm nights.

• Lettuce and peas love the cool early spring.

• Carrots, radish, and turnip want to be planted before your last frost.

• Basil sulks unless the soil is truly warm.

Understanding those preferences is the foundation of a thriving garden.

Planting dates are just one part of a successful garden. If you’re still deciding what to grow and where, this step-by-step guide on how to plan your garden walks through the full process.

Step 1: Find Your Last Frost Date (LFD)

This is the anchor point for your entire planting schedule.

Your last frost date is the average date in spring when nighttime temperatures stop dipping below freezing. Everything in your schedule counts backwards (or forwards) from this date.

You can google it, but inside Embrace, we automatically detect your location and set this for you.

Step 2: Sort Your Plants Into Three Groups

Every plant falls into one of these categories:

A. Start Indoors (Warm-Loving Plants)

Starting your own seeds indoors is optional, but it opens up a whole world of plant varieties you won’t find at a garden center.

Examples of plants you usually start indoors:
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil.

These need 6–10 weeks of indoor growth before they go outside.

Example for tomatoes:

Start indoors: 6–8 weeks before LFD

Transplant outdoors: on or after LFD (when nights are warm)

B: Direct Sow Outdoors (Cool-Weather Plants)

These plants can or should be planted directly in the garden, not started indoors.

Examples:
Peas, carrots, radish, spinach, turnip, bok choy.

These prefer cooler soil and can be planted before your last frost.

Example for peas:

Plant outdoors: 3–4 weeks before LFD

(or as soon as the soil can be worked)

C: Transplants (Bought from the Garden Center)

If you aren’t starting your own seeds, this is a great option for common plants.

Examples:
Herbs, leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers.

These go directly into the garden at their preferred outdoor time — which varies. If you go this route you should ask someone at the garden center or do your own research for the preferred time that each plant should be planted outside.

Example for basil:

Transplant outdoors: 2 weeks after LFD

(warm soil makes a huge difference)

Step 3: Turn This Into a Simple Schedule

When you know:

• your last frost date

• the plant’s preference (cold vs warm)

• whether you’re starting from seed or transplant

…you can calculate everything.

Here’s an example for a climate with an April 26 last frost date:

This becomes your personalized, climate-based gardening calendar.

Step 4: Add Hardening-Off Dates

If you’re starting seeds indoors, they need 5–7 days of gradual acclimation before going outside.

Simply start this process one week before your transplant date.

Want an Easier Way? Let Embrace Create Your Schedule

I’ve done this manually for years — and it works.
But the truth is… it’s a lot of work.

This is exactly why I built the original version of my garden planner, and why I’m now relaunching Embrace with a beautifully expanded version:

Embrace will:

✓ Calculate your entire planting schedule
✓ Adjust it to your climate
✓ Separate indoor vs outdoor sowing
✓ Include hardening-off windows
✓ Update based on what you actually planted

You design your garden → and Embrace creates your precise calendar automatically.

No more guessing.
No more digging through seed packets.