Fall Vegetable Garden Planner, NC State Extension Planting Calendar (PDF Download)

Eighteen cool-season crops with NC State Extension's actual planting windows, matched to your county's real first-frost date - and what to do when the ground you are planting into is clay.

WHY THIS EXISTS

Monroe averages first frost on October 26. Charlotte Douglas averages November 5. Same region, same nominal hardiness zone, ten days apart - and a national planting chart knows about neither. Across the Piedmont the spread is three weeks: Surry averages October 17, Montgomery averages November 7.

Fall is the better season here and most people miss it. Cool-season crops mature into falling temperatures rather than rising ones. Lettuce does not bolt. Brassicas escape the summer pests. Root crops size up in soil that is still warm while the air is not. The catch is that the window is narrow and it is keyed to a date that varies by county.

WHAT'S INSIDE (8 pages)

- 18 crops with Extension's own fall planting windows, given exactly as Extension gives them - not averaged, smoothed or adjusted
- Direct sow or transplant, days to maturity, and frost tolerance for each
- First-frost dates for 42 Piedmont counties, from NOAA long-term station normals
- How to count back from frost to your last safe sowing date, worked through for Union County
- Frost tolerance tiers by actual temperature, so you can check a crop against a forecast
- Planting into Piedmont clay: the crust problem that stops fall seed germinating, slow watering, and why a raised bed on unbroken clay is a planter with no drainage hole

WHAT IS NOT IN IT, AND WHY

A planting date you cannot trust is worse than no date at all. Garlic is kept out of the main table because two NC Extension county offices publish different windows - I give both and say so. Leeks and fall potatoes have no NC fall window at all; other states publish one and I have not substituted it. Where two Extension publications contradict each other on frost tolerance, I say which version I used and why.

WHERE THE INFORMATION COMES FROM

NC State Extension's fall vegetable publication, the Extension Gardener Handbook, NC Cooperative Extension county publications, and NOAA long-term climate normals. Full source list included, including one adjustment that comes from Nebraska rather than North Carolina - flagged as such rather than passed off as local guidance.

WHO WROTE IT

Alex Purdy, Carolina Terrain - a licensed North Carolina landscaping, drainage and hardscaping contractor in Waxhaw, Union County. NC Landscape License CL.1872, NCSU SCM Inspection and Maintenance Certification #5970, NDS Certified Drainage Contractor.

FORMAT

Instant digital download. PDF, 8 pages, printable at home on US Letter. No physical item ships.

PLEASE NOTE

Frost dates are averages, not promises - roughly half of years frost earlier than the date shown for your county. This is an educational guide covering regional conditions in the North Carolina Piedmont, not a plan for a specific address. I am a licensed contractor, not a professional engineer and not a registered landscape architect.

And a planting calendar cannot fix a bed that holds water. If your vegetable garden is in the low corner of the yard and stays soggy for days after rain, the calendar is not your problem - message me and I will point you to the right guide instead.