Your real frost dates and hardiness zone.
Put in a ZIP once and we estimate your first and last frost, hardiness zone, frost-free days, and Climate Drift from thirty years of gridded daily lows for your area. These are area-level planning estimates, not readings from a thermometer in your garden.
Zone 6b · Apr 25 to Oct 15
Typical numbers for this zone until you check your area above.
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Your first three steps, no signup needed
One pot, one win. We'll keep it tiny and specific so you actually finish it.
Read all three as a guest. Sign up to save your progress.
Get a seed to plant
Nothing grows without one. Find seeds or starts near you (seed libraries, nurseries, catalogs, and swaps) then come back and run the challenge.
Where to get seeds →
Play a round
Have some fun while learning. Soil, frost, and crop basics stick faster as a game.
Play a round →
Read your free ebook
Natural composting in an urban environment: 20 minutes, then you can start a jar today.
Open library →
Your growing pathway
Sprout → Harvesteader, then add selling when you have surplus. Meet yourself where you are.
Sprout
Balconies, patios, small beds. First harvests.
Start small and win fast. One tomato, a pot of herbs, a salad bowl on the windowsill.
- •Master watering: container soil dries out fast.
- •Pick 3 crops you actually eat weekly and repeat them.
- •Learn your microclimate: how many real hours of sun does the balcony get?
- •Compost kitchen scraps in a small bin, even in an apartment.
Next step: Add a second bed, or a vertical/tiered container setup. Try one crop you've never grown.
View Sprout plan · Purchase →
Harvesteader
Backyard beds, seasonal preserving, feeding the household.
Grow enough to matter at the dinner table. Preserve the extras. Rotate beds year to year.
- •Plan crop rotation across your beds (nightshades → legumes → brassicas → roots).
- •Preserve the peak: can, freeze, dry, ferment. Learn one method per season.
- •Seed-save one crop you love. Tomatoes and beans are the easiest starts.
- •Add pollinator flowers (borage, calendula, cosmos) inside the vegetable beds.
- •Build a real compost system: two bins so one finishes while the other fills.
Next step: Grow a deliberate surplus and start sharing or selling extras at a farmers market or neighborhood CSA.
View Harvesteader plan · Purchase →
Market Gardener
Selling the surplus at farmers markets and neighborhood CSAs.
You're growing for your household and for neighbors. A table at the market, a weekly box, a small hoop house extending the season.
- •Grow what sells: focus on 5–8 high-turnover crops (salad greens, tomatoes, herbs, eggs if you have hens).
- •Succession-plant every 2–3 weeks so you have something to bring to market every week.
- •Learn your local rules: cottage food laws, market booth fees, farmers-market applications.
- •Presentation matters. Clean bunches, a chalkboard price list, a friendly story.
- •Track cost per bed vs. revenue per bed. Drop crops that don't pay for their space.
- •Rotate cover crops through fallow beds (buckwheat in summer, winter rye + vetch in fall).
Animals that pair with a garden · Companion animals that pair well with a garden: kept simple, not a livestock manual: chickens for pest patrol + rich manure (keep them out of tender seedling beds); ducks for slug and snail cleanup around brassicas; rabbits (or a wild-friendly rabbit shelter) for high-nitrogen manure that composts fast; bees for pollination if you have space and neighbor permission. Start with one, learn its routine before adding another.
Next step: Once weekly sales are steady, expand into a small CSA subscription and a hoop house to stretch the season.
View Market Gardener plan · Purchase →
Crop, fruit & herb profiles
Browse the full library of what to grow at each stage of your pathway.