What to Plant in December USA

Home Vegetable Growing Guides for the USA Vegetable Planting Calendar USA What to Plant in December USA

What to plant in December in the USA depends entirely on your zone — this page answers it for every band. December is a planning month across most of the USA. Review the season, order seed, and keep harvesting protected winter crops. In the hot band, winter harvest continues outdoors and light frost protection is occasionally needed.

SoilCommander Editorial Team

USA vegetable growing guides · Checked against USDA and Cooperative Extension guidance

Every USA growing guide is written and maintained by our editorial team for real US growing conditions, and checked against USDA hardiness and frost-date data and Cooperative Extension growing advice before publication.

Plan

Rotation and seed order for next year

Zones 8-10

Winter harvest continues outdoors

Records

Now is when notes become next year's plan

December planting by region

Band	Sow outdoors	Start indoors	Plant out	Harvest now
Cold band USDA zones 3-5	Nothing.	Nothing.	Nothing.	Stored roots and squash; kale under cover.
Mild band USDA zones 6-7	Nothing outdoors.	Onions and leeks very late month.	Nothing.	Kale, leeks, parsnips, winter salad under cover.
Hot band USDA zones 8-10	Peas, greens, root crops.	Tomatoes for an early spring crop.	Brassica transplants.	Winter greens, brassicas, root crops, citrus.

December garden jobs

Write next season's crop rotation before you order seed.
Order seed early — the best short-season and disease-resistant cultivars sell out.
Check stored crops monthly and remove anything starting to spoil.
Service and repair tools and equipment.
Read back through this year's notes and pick three things to change.

Common December mistakes

Ordering seed before planning rotation, which leads to buying the wrong crops.
Leaving stored produce unchecked until something has spoiled the rest.
Planning purely from catalogues rather than from your own records.
Forgetting that zones 8-10 can still be sowing outdoors this month.

Turn December's jobs into a written plan. The USA Vegetable Garden Planner (printable PDF) has frost-date planning pages, bed layouts, crop rotation, a sowing log and a harvest tracker — 74 printable pages.

More USA planting guides

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I plant in December?

In zones 9-10, peas, greens and root crops outdoors, and tomatoes indoors for an early spring crop. In colder zones, December is for planning rather than planting.

How far ahead should I order seed?

By December or early January. Popular short-season and disease-resistant cultivars are routinely sold out by February.

What should I do with my garden records now?

Turn them into next season's plan — which beds held which family, what underperformed, and what you ran out of.

Last updated 25 August 2026

Relevant next steps

Turn This Month's Jobs Into A Plan

Month-by-month advice works best when it becomes a written sowing list, bed plan, and follow-up task list.

Printable garden plannerRecord this month's sowing dates, crop rotation, and bed tasks. Seed starting setupChoose trays, labels, compost, and indoor sowing tools before you start. Full planting calendarCompare this month with the rest of the UK growing year.

Plan the next step

Use the printable SoilCommander planner for your region to turn this guide into sowing dates, bed layouts and weekly garden tasks.

Get Planner

What to Plant in December USA