How to Make a Planting Schedule

One of the keys to getting your garden plan started is making a detailed planting schedule. It will keep you on track. Make sure you get everything done on time, and help ensure a successful garden season. To put together a complete schedule there are several steps you need to take. Let’s get started on how to make a planting schedule.

What is a Planting Schedule?

A planting schedule is a listing of when to plant your seeds, when to move seedlings into larger pots, when to transplant seedlings outside, and when to start the next round of succession plants. The key information you need to create your schedule will depend on what you plan to grow, where you plan to grow it, and what your growing season looks like. If you grow exclusively indoors in a heated growing space under lights, then your schedule will mostly depend on when you want to have your harvest. But for anyone growing outdoors, late winter is the time to create your planting schedule so you can prepare your plants for the peak growing season.

Researching Your Seeds

The first step in creating your schedule is looking at what you want to grow in your garden. If you want to grow garlic, in most areas your planting should start in the fall. But for most other crops, you will start seeds anywhere from 30 – 90 days before you can move them outside. Check your seed packets, or look for information online for your specific seed variety. The seed information should say either sow indoors or sow outdoors and will usually specify a number of weeks before or after your first frost.

I like to group my seeds into similar planting dates. This makes it easier to create a planting schedule by keeping those groups together. I usually plant once a week, so all the crops with planting dates that fit within a particular week will go on the schedule for that planting day. You also need to research information on when to transplant or succession plant if needed. For more tips, check out my blog post on How to Read a Seed Packet.

Finding Your Dates

The next step in creating your schedule is to figure out your first and last frost dates. For any outside planting, your location has average dates for both the last frost in the spring and the first frost in the fall. For a typical growing season planting schedule, the last frost date is the most important date. You will use that date to work backwards to when to start each of your kinds of seeds indoors. Or, for planting directly in the soil outside, you may be planting a specific number of weeks before or after the last frost date.

There are lots of different places you can find frost dates in books or online. The last and first frost dates generally come with a percentage number with them. That’s the confidence level that the frost will have happened by that date. The higher the percentage, the more sure you are that you will have frost by then. Choosing the high percentage date can prevent losing some seedlings in the spring, but it can also limit your harvest window by delaying planting. Similarly in the fall, planting too close to a first frost date can get your plants nipped before they are ripe. For more info on choosing the right percentages check out my blog post on How to Find Your First Frost Date.

What Works Best For You?

The format of your planting schedule can vary depending on what works best for you. There are many digital options both paid and free. But you can also use an online calendar or a spreadsheet. Or just a paper calendar or planner. You could even use a simple piece of paper and just write down the dates. It all depends on how you like to see and process information.

You should also consider how you plan to use your schedule. Will you want to bring it out to the garden with you? Or is your seed starting area indoors? Do you anticipate a lot of schedule changes? Or is your planting plan pretty set in stone? Also, are you going to be planting directly off of the schedule, or is it just a prompt that you will transfer into a more detailed garden journal or workbook? My Ultimate Garden Workbook is a great place to store all your garden info.

So don’t wait any longer, figure out what works best for you and make your planting schedule today!