Cool-season crops can start early once soil can be prepared.
Regional guide
Upper Midwest Short-Season Garden
A frost-aware guide for northern gardeners who need quick cool-season starts, protected warm-season transplants, and reliable fall repeats.
Regional timing
Current regional planting plan
Source-backed timing
UMN planting the vegetable garden
Upper Midwest
3 climate signals
Source
source cues
Local
conditions
- Use soil temperature and local freeze dates instead of hardiness zone alone.
- Cool-season crops can start early once soil can be prepared.
- Warm-season transplants wait until after the last frost and settled soil warmth.
- Catalog priority
- 8 priority crops 8 catalog examples
- Climate checks
- 3 climate signals 3 planning notes
- Timing basis
- Use regional source signals source guidance first
Sugar Snap Pea, Bloomsdale Spinach, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, French Breakfast Radish
Reserve protected space for tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, squash, melons, and other warm-season crops.
Calendar
Convert regional timing into dated sowing, transplant, and harvest jobs.
Frost dates
Keep hardiness zone context separate from local first and last frost dates.
All regions
Compare this guide with the broader regional atlas.
Minnesota Soil Temp
UMN Extension guide for Minnesota vegetable timing built around soil temperature, freeze-date tools, and short-season transplants.
Climate signals
- Use soil temperature and local freeze dates instead of hardiness zone alone.
- Cool-season crops can start early once soil can be prepared.
- Warm-season transplants wait until after the last frost and settled soil warmth.
Planning notes
- Build the spring plan around peas, spinach, lettuce, radish, onions, and brassica transplants.
- Reserve protected space for tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, squash, melons, and other warm-season crops.
- Use late-summer repeats for kohlrabi, lettuce, radish, spinach, kale, and turnip where the fall window allows.
Catalog crop examples
These catalog entries match crops covered by the regional timing source; variety-specific details remain tied to each seed entry's own source.
- Sugar Snap Pea Vegetable · Cool · 62 days
- Bloomsdale Spinach Vegetable · Cool · 42 days
- Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
- French Breakfast Radish Vegetable · Cool · 28 days
- Lacinato Kale Vegetable · Cool · 60 days
- Roma Tomato Vegetable · Warm · 76 days
- California Wonder Pepper Vegetable · Warm · 72 days
- Delicata Winter Squash Vegetable · Warm · 100 days
Related regional guides
- Minnesota Soil-Temperature Vegetable Garden UMN Extension guide for Minnesota vegetable timing built around soil temperature, freeze-date tools, and short-season transplants.
Dated sowing answers, where the data exists
Five regions on this site have a dated "what can I still sow today" page, built from the windows their state extension service publishes: Texas, North Florida, Central Maryland, New York City and York County, PA. Upper Midwest is not one of them, and nothing on those pages applies here.
- Five regions have a dated first-frost answer; Upper Midwest is not one of them yet The method behind the five covered regions: a published planting window, days to maturity, and the local first frost.