Balcony Harvest

Container gardening · USDA zones 3–11

Find out what you can actually plant this month — on a balcony, a patio, or one window.

Most planting guides tell you to "sow after last frost" and leave you to work out what that means. Enter your hardiness zone and we calculate the real dates for 12 productive container crops: when to start seed indoors, when to move plants out, and when you actually eat.

Open the planting calendar Browse the 12 crops

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Tomato, basil and lettuce growing in fabric grow bags on a sunny city balcony

Why this calendar is different

Dates, not vague advice

Every crop is stored as an offset from your zone's last frost date. The site does the arithmetic and shows an actual window — for example "start indoors Feb 20 – Mar 6" — instead of telling you to "plant in spring".

Container-first

Every entry lists the minimum pot size in gallons and the soil depth needed. A crop that needs 7 gallons is useless advice if you have a 2-gallon balcony rail planter, so we say so up front.

Two seasons, not one

Spring gets the attention, but fall is easier: fewer pests, less watering, and cool crops that taste better after frost. The calendar shows both sowing windows for anything that supports one.

Start with these

All 12 crops
Nightshade · Easy Cherry Tomato The highest-value crop you can grow in a pot. One bush-type cherry tomato in a 5-gallon container can give you a handful of fruit every day for ten weeks. 5 gal pot · 12" deep · 6–8 hours Legume · Easy Bush Bean The best first crop for a new container garden: fast, cheap from seed, fixes its own nitrogen, and needs no staking. 3 gal pot · 9" deep · 6–8 hours Aster · Easy Loose-leaf Lettuce The fastest route from seed to salad, and the crop that proves a 2-gallon pot on a shaded balcony can still feed you. 2 gal pot · 6" deep · 3–5 hours Mustard · Easy Radish Seed to harvest in under a month. The fastest win available, and the best crop to give a child or a first-time gardener. 1 gal pot · 6" deep · 4–6 hours Mint · Easy Basil The herb that pays for its pot the first week. Cut it correctly and one plant gives you a cup of leaves every ten days. 2 gal pot · 8" deep · 5–7 hours Mustard · Easy Kale The most cold-hardy leafy crop in this list. It survives frost, keeps producing for months, and one pot is genuinely enough for a family. 3 gal pot · 10" deep · 4–6 hours

Guides

All guides
Guide How much sun does your balcony actually get? Measure it in one day A one-day method for measuring direct sun on a balcony, how aspect and season change the answer, and which crops suit 3, 4–5, or 6+ hours. Guide The potting mix that works for vegetables — and why bagged mix fails What container vegetables actually need from a mix, a simple three-part recipe, and how much to buy for the pots you own. Guide How to start a container vegetable garden for under $60 A real budget breakdown for a first container garden — what to buy, what to skip, and a six-week plan that gets you harvesting instead of shopping.

How the dates are calculated

Each crop in our dataset carries four numbers: weeks before last frost to start seed indoors, weeks after last frost to transplant, weeks after last frost to direct sow, and weeks before first frost for a fall sowing. We combine those with a typical last and first frost date for your zone. The result is reproducible, and it is the reason the same crop shows a different calendar three zones apart.

The frost dates are averages, not predictions. Ten miles inland from a coast, or thirty feet higher on a hill, can move your real last frost by two weeks. Use our dates as a plan and your own microclimate as the authority.

Read the full method