Spinach planting calendar
When to plant spinach — pick your state
Spinach timing swings hard by climate — choose your state for sow, transplant, and harvest dates calibrated to its USDA zone and frost window.
Northeast
Southeast
Midwest
Southwest
West
Pacific
Not listed: Hawaii — the dominant climate zone there is outside spinach's practical range, so a generic calendar would mislead more than it helps.
Common questions
When should I plant spinach?
Spinach is direct-sown only — it does not transplant well and runs to seed quickly under any stress. Sow as soon as soil can be worked, 4–6 weeks before the last spring frost; it germinates in soil as cold as 4 °C and seedlings survive light freezes to -6 °C. Bolt risk rises sharply once daytime temperatures consistently exceed 24 °C or day length passes 14 hours, so succession-sow every 2 weeks and switch to heat-tolerant varieties in late spring. In Zones 7–10, a second sowing in late summer or early fall produces the best crop of the year. Because the right window depends on your local frost dates, pick your US state above for a calendar with exact sow, transplant, and harvest dates.
Does the best time to plant spinach vary by state?
Yes — planting dates swing by several weeks across the US because each state sits in a different USDA zone with its own frost window. Every state page here gives spinach dates calibrated to that state's climate.
How are these spinach planting dates calculated?
Each state's dates come from that state's dominant USDA hardiness zone and NOAA average frost dates, then adjusted for spinach's cold tolerance and days to maturity.