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Seed Starting Date Calculator

Find when to sow seeds indoors and transplant, counted from your last spring frost date, per crop.

About this tool

Seed Starting Date Calculator is a free, in-browser tool that turns your last spring frost date into a personal sowing schedule. Enter the frost date and pick a crop, and it returns the date to start seeds indoors and the date to transplant seedlings outside, along with how many weeks before frost you sow. Frost dates are entered by you — the tool does not fetch weather data. Nothing is uploaded; the math runs on your device.

Each crop carries a recommended number of weeks to sow before the last frost and a transplant offset in weeks relative to frost. The indoor sow date = frost date − weeks-before × 7 days, and the transplant date = frost date + offset × 7 days, where a negative offset means transplant before the frost date for cold-hardy crops. All date arithmetic uses Date.UTC-based day counting, so results never shift by a day around daylight-saving changes.

Use it to plan a whole season: look up your region's average last spring frost from a local extension service or frost-date map, enter it once, and step through each crop. Tender crops like tomatoes, peppers and basil transplant after frost, while cool-season crops like lettuce and broccoli go out a couple of weeks before it.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I get my last frost date?
Use the average last spring frost for your area from a local extension office, a frost-date lookup or historical records. The tool does not access live weather — you enter the date, and every schedule is counted from it.
How are the sow and transplant dates calculated?
The indoor sow date is the frost date minus the crop's weeks-before value times seven days. The transplant date is the frost date plus the crop's offset times seven days; a negative offset places transplant before the frost date for hardy crops.
Why do some crops transplant before the frost date?
Cool-season crops such as lettuce, broccoli and onions tolerate light frost and can go out two weeks before the last frost, shown as a negative offset. Tender crops like tomatoes and basil wait until after it.
Are the dates affected by daylight-saving time?
No. All day math uses UTC-based dates, so adding or subtracting weeks never drifts by a day when clocks change, and nothing you enter is uploaded — it all runs in your browser.

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