Time to Plant

While bicycling to work last week I came across a gardening display outside the local grocery store with this map.

I pass this place all the time while driving and biking but only noticed it because I had to stop and make a bike adjustment. Sometimes you have to stop and look at the maps along the way. The early morning light conditions were pretty bad but I took a picture anyway.

The Burpee Growing Zone Map is based on the USDA's plant hardiness zones. I'm not sure what accounts for the subtle differences between the map above and the USDA one.

For comparison I took a picture from the back of the seed packet. This is identical to the top map with a different color scheme and with pairs of adjacent zones combined. The map is the same for every seed packet whether vegetables, fruits or flowers. If you need more plant-specific dates you can enter your zip here

Here in the northeastern US it's time to start planting.