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Gardening Guides

No fluff, no 3,000-word detours. Each guide answers the question you actually asked, with the dates and numbers sourced to university extension services. Pair them with the free garden tools to make it specific to your spot.

Frost Basics →

A dark blue-green curly kale plant edged with white frost, growing low in dry cracked terracotta soil.

Frost-Tolerant Vegetables: Which Ones Survive Cold, and at What Temperature

Which vegetables tolerate frost, and at what temperature. Four groups — tender to very-hardy — from our plant data, mapped to sourced extension temps.

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Two terracotta raised beds full of low leafy plants at night, under a large pale banded moon and a dark hedge.

Will It Frost Tonight? Read the Signs in Your Own Yard

Will it frost tonight? Read your own yard: the three signs of a frost night, the dew-point rule, and why your low spots run colder than the forecast.

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Frost Protection →

A white row cover stretched over metal hoops along a raised bed of greens at dusk, the far end breaking apart into scattered squares.

How to Protect Plants From Frost: A 6 P.M. Game Plan

How to protect plants from frost: work out which plants are actually at risk tonight, then cover only the tender ones the right way — and uncover by morning.

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When to Plant →

A young lemon tree carrying ripe yellow lemons in a terracotta pot on a tiled patio, one of the lemons rendered as a pale faceted gem, with a second empty pot standing beside it.

Which Fruit Grows in a Container: Ask Pollination Before Pot Size

In a container you have one plant. Seven of our 26 fruit crops will never set fruit alone, no matter the pot — and that is the question to settle before you buy anything.

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A terracotta seed tray of young tomato seedlings standing on sunlit wooden porch steps beside a metal watering can, with a house door open behind them.

How Long to Harden Off Seedlings: What Six Extension Services Actually Say

Extension services do not agree on how long hardening off takes — the range runs seven to fourteen days. Here is what each one says, why the temperature matters more than the count, and the two crops that invert the whole thing in opposite directions.

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A single garlic bulb rendered in angular facets, lit from behind, standing above tilled rows of dark soil scattered with fallen maple leaves.

When to Plant Garlic: Zone-by-Zone Fall Planting Windows

When to plant garlic by zone: about 1–2 weeks after your first killing frost. Late September into October in zones 3–6, into November in 7–8, and later in the South.

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A cream bucket tipped on its side on a green tarp with potatoes spilling out of it, a heap of spent yellow foliage beside them, against wide bands of yellow sun.

How to Grow Potatoes in a Bucket: One Plant Per Bucket, and Why

New Hampshire Extension gives the number nobody else does — five gallons of soil per plant. That turns the vague advice into arithmetic you can do with buckets you already own. Depth, hilling, and when to tip it out.

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Two potted tomatoes on a patio. On the left a short bushy plant loaded with ripe fruit fills its pot; on the right a tall thin plant climbs a wire cage with only a few tomatoes on it.

How to Grow Tomatoes in Pots: The Size Everyone Quotes Is for a Different Plant

Five gallons is real advice — for a compact tomato. Seven out of ten tomato varieties are not compact, and that mismatch is why container tomatoes stall in July. Pot size, how to tell what you bought, and 33 varieties that actually fit.

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A full-grown apple tree loaded with red fruit spreading across the whole frame, with one small white five-gallon bucket standing at the foot of its trunk, dwarfed by it.

What You Cannot Grow in a 5-Gallon Bucket — It Is Not the Depth

Everybody says buckets are too shallow. They are not — a bucket meets the depth Maryland Extension's deepest class asks for. The real limits are width and weight.

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Two terracotta pots standing in snow. The one on the left holds a shrub cut back to bare red stems; the one on the right holds a rosemary still fully green.

What Planting Zone Am I In? Find Yours, Then See What It Decides

Look up your USDA hardiness zone in one click, then find out what the number is actually for: 53 perennial crops and the coldest zone each one survives. Plus the one thing your zone will never tell you.

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A five-gallon bucket planted with a young pepper plant carrying two ripe red peppers, standing on patio bricks with drainage holes visible in its base.

What to Grow in a 5-Gallon Bucket — and the Four Crops That Don't Fit

Maryland Extension publishes container sizes twice, in two different systems, and the two answers straddle the five-gallon line. A bucket is right for beans, carrots, chard, cherry tomatoes and cabbage. For tomatoes and peppers it is the floor, not the answer.

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Two terracotta raised beds side by side at sunrise. The left bed is still white with frost and empty; the right has thawed dark soil with a young tomato plant tied to a stake.

When to Plant Tomatoes in Your Zone (And Why the Zone Can't Tell You)

Your hardiness zone describes your coldest winter night, not when spring freezes stop. Here is what actually sets your tomato date, and how far apart two gardens in the same state really are.

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A tray of seedlings on a windowsill under a small desk lamp, seed packets fanned out beside it and a wall calendar with one date circled in red. Through the window, a bare garden at dusk.

When to Start Seeds Indoors: Count Back From Your Own Last Frost

Every seed-starting date is counted back from one date: your last spring frost. Here is that date for 28 US metros, the weeks to count back for 20 crops, and what to do if you started early.

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A seed drill in dark soil with tiny carrot seeds, radish seedlings up at one end, and dry cracked crust at the other.

When to Plant Carrots: Two Temperatures, Not One

You can sow carrots at 40°F. They germinate best at 55 to 65°F and take two to three weeks to show. The gap between those numbers is where most carrot rows are lost.

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One bench, one lamp: the tray under it is short and green, the tray further away is pale and stretched toward the light.

How to Start Seeds Indoors: The Number Is Two Inches

Every guide says give seedlings adequate light. Minnesota gives the number — the lamp goes two to four inches above the leaves — and names lack of light as the cause of leggy stems.

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A row of onions with bulbs half out of dark soil, and one near the end sending up a tall flower stalk above the rest.

When to Plant Onions: As Early as You Can, Not Earlier

Onions are the hardiest thing you grow, and you can still plant them too early — cold doesn't kill them, it makes them bolt. Meanwhile bulbing starts on day length, not on your date.

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A row of young potato shoots through dark soil with frost lying between them, the plant at one end blackened by cold.

When to Plant Potatoes: The Crop That Doesn't Wait

Potatoes go in before the last frost, because a frost costs them two weeks rather than the crop. What they actually wait for is soil at 50°F — not a date, and not your zone.

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A sweet potato half-submerged in a jar of water, purple-green shoots rising from its top and pale roots fanning below.

Sweet Potato Slips: The Sprouts Are the Plant

A sprouting sweet potato is not spoiled, it is starting. Those shoots are slips, and they are how the crop is grown — with or without roots on them. Here is how to raise them.

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A hand lifting a tiny seedling from a cell tray by one leaf, roots trailing, beside a pot of mix with a hole ready.

When to Transplant Seedlings: Two Jobs, One Phrase

Potting up and planting out are months apart and wait on different things. The one people delay is the one that wants doing sooner — as soon as the first true leaves appear.

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Summer Heat →

Dried yellow blossoms scattered where they fell across cracked pale soil, seen from ground level, with a banded sun disc low on the horizon in a bleached sky.

Why Are My Tomato Flowers Falling Off? It's the Heat

Tomato flowers falling off with no fruit behind them is almost always heat. Here are the temperatures that do it, how long it has to last, and what actually helps.

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Plant Problems →

A blue-green cabbage leaf close up, chewed through with ragged holes and one patch eaten down to a pale translucent film. Three green caterpillars rest on it at very different sizes — a large one humped up into a loop, a medium one stretched along a leaf rib, and a small slender one. A banded sun sits low on the horizon behind.

Cabbage Worms: Three Green Caterpillars, and You Tell Them Apart by Poking Them

Imported cabbageworm, cabbage looper and diamondback moth are all green and all called cabbage worms. Color will not separate them. What they do when you touch them will.

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Two beetles on a green squash leaf with one chewed hole above them, seen from above against cream paper. The left beetle is yellow-orange with three black stripes — one down the center seam and one on each wing case. The right is yellow-green with about twelve small black spots and a solid black head.

Cucumber Beetles: Stripes Mean the Grubs Are in Your Roots, Spots Mean They Are Not

Two quarter-inch beetles share the name and look alike. Only the striped one's larvae feed on cucurbit roots — UC IPM says exclusively. That decides what a wilting plant means.

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A cucumber vine climbing a wooden trellis, its big leaves patched with angular yellow blotches that stop dead at the veins, with dark green cucumbers hanging from it.

Cucumber Leaves Turning Yellow: The Straight-Edged Patches Are the Tell

Straight-edged yellowing that stops at the veins narrows it to two — downy mildew or angular leaf spot — and the underside of the leaf decides which. The cucumber differential, extension-sourced.

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A ripe red tomato hanging on the vine against aged paper. Its top is still glossy and healthy, while the entire lower half is a wide sunken patch of dry, wrinkled dark brown. A band of scattered colored pixels cuts horizontally across the fruit where the red meets the brown.

Blossom End Rot: It Is a Calcium Problem, and the Calcium Spray Cannot Fix It

The fruit really is short of calcium. Your soil usually is not. Clemson names the spray as a myth for two mechanical reasons — and the actual fix is how you water.

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A seed tray of dark compost. Four small seedlings stand upright at the back while seven others lie toppled flat on the soil, each with a thin pale stem and bright green leaves that still look perfectly healthy. A banded sun disc glows above the tray.

Damping Off: There Is No Cure, So the Whole Job Is Getting Seedlings Past It Fast

Several unrelated organisms share the name, and unusually it does not matter which one you have. Wisconsin's advice is to germinate warm so seedlings 'rapidly grow out of the stage'.

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A large cucumber leaf held by its stalk and turned over to show the pale underside with its veins standing out. Dark purple patches of fuzzy growth spread across it, each one stopping in a straight line where it meets a vein. A cucumber vine and trellis post stand behind.

Downy Mildew: The Straight-Edged Patches Are a Cucumber Thing

The angular, vein-bounded lesion everyone teaches is cucumber's tell. NC State says it is less reliable on watermelon and cantaloupe — and basil's downy mildew is a different genus entirely.

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A thin green tomato stem cut straight across and held upright between two fingers, its cut face toward the viewer. Just inside the green skin runs a ring of dark brown, wrapped around a pale ivory core. Tomato foliage and an evening sky behind it.

Fusarium Wilt: The One in Your Tomato Bed Cannot Touch Your Beans

It is not one disease. Each fusarium wilt is locked to its own host — UC IPM says the tomato one 'infects tomatoes only.' That changes what you can plant there next year.

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A single large chard leaf with deep green blades and red stems, lit from behind against a violet-to-gold sky. One pale tunnel snakes across the middle of the leaf and widens as it goes, and its far end breaks apart into drifting squares of light.

Leaf Miners: By the Time You See the Tunnels, Spraying Is Too Late

The grub is sealed inside the leaf where sprays cannot reach it. Minnesota Extension also says the damage barely matters — unless the leaf is the part you eat.

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The underside of a large squash leaf, with a tight cluster of coppery bronze eggs tucked into the V where two leaf veins meet.

Squash Bugs: Why Spraying the Ones You Can See Does Not Work

By the time you notice adult squash bugs, spray is the weakest tool you have. The whole fight is eggs and freshly hatched nymphs — here's the timing, extension-sourced.

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Two compound tomato leaves lying on dark soil. The leaflets of the left leaf are covered in small brown spots, each with concentric rings inside it and a yellow halo around it. On the right leaf, one leaflet is almost entirely taken over by a single large dark-brown blotch.

Tomato Blight: One Name, Two Diseases, and Opposite Instructions

Early blight is yours to manage over a season. Late blight is a water mold that blows in, kills in days, and puts your neighbors' plants at risk. Telling them apart decides what you do today.

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Two tomato leaves on dark soil, both curled and curled in opposite directions. The left leaf's leaflets are folded upward along their midribs into shallow troughs, the leaf still a healthy deep green. The right leaf's leaflets bend downward and droop, narrowed and strappy. A banded sun sits low between them.

Tomato Leaves Curling: Which Way They Roll Tells You Whether Anything Is Wrong

Rolling upward from the lower leaves is physiological leaf roll — UC IPM says it is not caused by a pathogen and will not harm plants. Rolling downward with twisted growth is something else.

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A large green caterpillar gripping the stem of a tomato plant, its back and sides covered with dozens of small white cocoons lying flat against its skin.

Tomato Hornworm: How to Find It, and the One You Must Not Kill

Find hornworms by their droppings, not by hunting green on green. And if yours is covered in white cocoons, leave it — it's already dead and working for you.

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A tomato plant tied to a wooden stake in bare soil. Its lowest leaves have gone yellow and are drooping, while the top of the plant stays green and carries small ripening tomatoes.

Tomato Leaves Turning Yellow: How to Tell Which Cause It Is

Yellow tomato leaves have five common causes and the yellow alone can't tell them apart. Use the spots, the pattern, and which leaves are hit — extension-sourced.

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A young cabbage-family seedling in a raised bed of dark soil, its leaves peppered with dozens of small round holes chewed clean through.

Flea Beetles: When the Shot-Holes Matter and When They Don't

Tiny holes peppered through your leaves, and beetles that jump when you lean in. On a two-week-old seedling that is urgent. On a grown plant it is not.

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A speckled green leaf bronzing at the tip, with two smears on the paper below it, one green and one orange.

Spider Mites: Why the Spray Often Makes It Worse

Too small to see, so you diagnose the leaf. Three extension services name the sprays people reach for as a cause of spider mite outbreaks. Here is what to do instead.

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A stream of green and copper beetles flies past a bulging full trap bag and on to roses eaten down to lace.

Japanese Beetles: Why the Trap Makes It Worse

Metallic green head, coppery wings, leaves eaten to lace. Two extension services find the traps pull in more beetles than they catch. Here is what to do instead.

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A green stem packed with aphids, and a spiny orange-and-gray ladybird larva working through them, leaving bare stem behind.

Aphids: How to Be Sure, and When to Leave Them

Every aphid has two tiny tailpipes at the back end, and nothing else on your plants does. Minnesota says most aphid populations can simply be ignored. Here is when that holds.

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A tomato leaf covered in small dark-rimmed spots, with one larger spot showing tiny black dots inside its pale center.

Septoria Leaf Spot: The Tell Is Inside the Spot

Many small spots, pale centers, and tiny black specks in the middle of each one. That last detail is what separates Septoria from early blight, and it decides what you do next.

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Garden Planning →

A vegetable plot at sunset, seen down its length. Long rows of lettuce, cabbage and squash run away toward a low banded sun, with staked tomatoes standing along both sides. Wide strips of bare reddish soil separate every row, and a tape measure lies unrolled across one of them.

Vegetable Garden Layout: What Goes Where, With Real Spacing Math

The number that decides a layout is the gap between rows, not between plants. Cucumbers want 48 to 72 inches between rows. A 4×8 bed is 48 inches wide.

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When to Harvest →

A lifted garlic plant on dark soil with brown lower leaves and green upper ones, its bulb cut open to show full cloves.

When to Harvest Garlic: Two Signs, One Test

The leaves are the bulb's wrappers, which is why they tell you when to dig and why waiting too long costs you. Plus the test that settles it: pull one and cut it across.

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A fork lifting pale potatoes out of dark soil, with the plant's own dead brown tops lying across the row above them.

When to Harvest Potatoes: Two Crops, One Plant

New potatoes come at seven or eight weeks. Storage potatoes need the tops to die back and then two more weeks in the ground, which is the step that thickens the skin.

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