One date, one schedule
Every seed packet says something like “start indoors 6–8 weeks before last frost” — which is useless until you pin down your last frost and do the counting for a dozen packets at once. That’s this tool: it anchors on your date (find it with the frost date lookup), sorts every selected crop by its start week, and prints clean so it can live on the seed-shelf clipboard.
The order is surprisingly consistent
Wherever you garden, the sequence barely changes: onions, leeks, and celery first (10 weeks out), then peppers and eggplant, then tomatoes and the cabbage family, then quick cucurbits just 3–4 weeks before frost — while peas, roots, and greens skip the indoor stage entirely and go straight in the ground. Your frost date shifts the whole ladder earlier or later; the rungs stay in order.
Direct-sow crops appear too
The schedule includes garden sowings alongside indoor starts, so the printout is a complete spring to-do list, not just a windowsill plan. For depth on any single crop — spacing, varieties, fall plantings — jump to its when-to-plant guide.
Frequently asked questions
Why start seeds indoors at all?
Head start and control. Tomatoes, peppers, and brassicas need more warm weeks than most climates offer, so they bank 6–10 weeks of growth on a windowsill or under lights before the garden is ready for them. Indoors you also control temperature, moisture, and pests during the fragile seedling stage.
What if I start seeds too early?
Too early is the more common mistake — you get leggy, rootbound, stressed transplants that stall when planted out and are often overtaken by properly timed ones. Trust the count-back windows; if you must err, err a week late.
Do I need grow lights, or is a window enough?
A south window works for a tray or two of tough crops, but most seedlings stretch and lean without supplemental light. An inexpensive full-spectrum shop light hung 2–3 inches above the canopy, running 14–16 hours a day, is the single biggest upgrade for stocky transplants.
What does "harden off" mean and when do I do it?
It’s the 7–10 day transition from indoor comfort to outdoor reality: set seedlings outside in shade for an hour, then longer and sunnier each day. Start hardening off about a week before each crop’s transplant window opens.