How Long to Grow Vegetables Chart: Days by Crop

Step 1: Learn what the days number counts

Every crop in a growing-time chart has a range of days, and the range starts at planting. A University of Georgia Cooperative Extension chart says its days to maturity run from planting seed or setting transplants in the garden. The same chart says the count varies with cultivar, temperature and growing conditions.

So the number is not a promise. It is a window, and the low end belongs to a fast variety in good weather.

Seed and transplants count differently. A University of Maryland Extension fall planting post says the seed packet's days to maturity is the time between sowing and harvest, and that crops usually grown as transplants, such as broccoli and cabbage, count days from transplant. Its broccoli example is 60 days from transplant, plus about another five weeks to grow the transplants. For those crops, add the seedling weeks to the chart's days.

A days-to-harvest number is a planning estimate, and the garden gets the final say.

Step 2: See how long to grow vegetables on one chart

The table below lists 14 crops from the Georgia chart and the K-State guide from Kansas. Both columns are days to first harvest, and the two states agree on some crops and differ on others.

Eight of the 14 Georgia ranges sit entirely between 50 and 90 days. The fast ones are the cool-season leaves and roots, and the slow ones are the vines that need warm weather. Tomatoes are left out of the Kansas column because that guide lists them as transplants and gives a range of 52 to 120 days, which cannot be set beside a seed count.

Step 3: Compare two states before you trust one number

Two charts beat one. The K-State Research and Extension guide lists radishes twice. A spring radish takes 25 to 40 days, and a fall radish takes 35 to 60.

The split shows how season changes the count. Seed sown in cooling weather can need more days when the weather cools in fall. If you sow a fall crop, plan toward the long end of the range.

A crop can also run past the packet. Georgia names cultivar, temperature and growing conditions as the causes. Maryland adds the fall cause, since days get shorter and plants grow more slowly. A fall crop wants extra days, and a cool, cloudy summer can stretch a spring one.

Where the two charts disagree, pick the one nearer your climate. Bush beans match exactly, at 50 to 60 days, so you can count on that one.

Step 4: Turn the days into a harvest date

Add the range to the day the crop goes in. Say you set out tomato plants on May 15. Seventy days later is July 24 and 90 days later is August 13, so you watch for the first ripe fruit in that three-week window.

Do the same for a crop you sow late. Bush beans put in on June 1 start giving pods between July 21 and July 31, using the 50 to 60 day range.

Doing this sum for every crop is where most people stall. A printed chart that already lists the weeks for your own frost date saves it, and The Garden Year bundle includes a 41-crop master chart with days to harvest beside the planting weeks.

Step 5: Fit slow and fast crops into one bed

Day counts tell you how long a crop holds its space. A tomato that needs 70 to 90 days keeps a spot for at least two radish crops, because 70 divided by 30 is about 2.3. A 90-day tomato could hold the space through three, since 90 divided by 25 is 3.6.

So put a quick crop beside a slow one early in the season. The radishes come out before the tomato needs the room.

Note the end of the season too. A tender warm-season crop that needs 80 days has to start early enough to finish before the first fall frost.

Step 6: Count back from the first fall frost

Work backward from the date frost ends the crop. Maryland's example is kale at 55 days to maturity from sowing. Add 14 days for the slower growth of shortening fall days, which makes 69. Subtract 69 days from a first frost of October 20 and you get August 12, the last good day to sow.

A transplanted crop needs the seedling weeks too. The same post starts broccoli (60 days from transplant) on August 7 as the transplant date, and about five weeks earlier, July 3, as the sowing date. Use your own first-frost date in place of October 20.

A free chart is enough for a few crops

If you grow five or six crops and your state extension publishes a planting chart for your region, print that and skip anything else. The numbers above come from exactly that kind of free publication.

A kit helps when you grow 15 or 20 crops and do not want to run the sums for each. The Winter Plan lists days to harvest on its 41-crop master chart beside the sowing weeks, and its fall countback worksheet has a worked example of the Step 6 count. You read the master chart at the winter seed order, work the countback in summer, and use the fall countdown page around first frost. The Season Record kit has a planting log and a harvest tally, where you write the picked date beside the predicted one.