What to Plant in July USA

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

What to plant in July in the USA depends entirely on your zone — this page answers it for every band. July is a maintenance month in most of the USA and a planting gap in the hot band. Keep succession sowing fast crops, start fall brassicas indoors, and protect everything from heat and drought stress.

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.

Fall crops

Start brassicas indoors now

2-3 wks

Succession sowing interval

80F

Above this, lettuce bolts quickly

July planting by region

Band	Sow outdoors	Start indoors	Plant out	Harvest now
Cold band USDA zones 3-5	Succession beans, carrots, beets and fall greens.	Fall brassicas — broccoli, cabbage, kale.	Fall brassica transplants late month.	Beans, zucchini, cucumbers, early tomatoes, garlic.
Mild band USDA zones 6-7	Fall carrots and beets; succession beans.	Fall brassicas.	Fall brassica transplants late month.	Tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, garlic, onions.
Hot band USDA zones 8-10	Little to nothing — maintain irrigation.	Fall brassicas and tomatoes, in shade.	Nothing.	Okra, southern peas, melons, sweet potatoes.

July garden jobs

Harvest zucchini and beans every day or two — missed pods stop production.
Lift and cure garlic once the lower leaves brown.
Start fall brassicas indoors where it is too hot to germinate them outside.
Keep water consistent to prevent blossom end rot and split tomatoes.
Scout for squash bugs, hornworms and spider mites weekly.

Common July mistakes

Letting zucchini and beans go over, which shuts down further flowering.
Forgetting fall crops entirely — July is when the fall garden is decided.
Watering in the evening in humid regions, leaving foliage wet overnight.
Harvesting garlic too late, so the bulbs split and store poorly.

Turn July'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 July?

Succession beans, carrots, beets and fall greens in the cold and mild bands, and fall brassicas started indoors everywhere. In the hot band, July is for maintenance rather than planting.

When should I harvest garlic?

When roughly the lower third to half of the leaves have browned but the upper leaves are still green. Waiting longer causes the bulb wrappers to split.

Why is my lettuce bitter?

It has bolted. Lettuce turns bitter and runs to seed above about 80F. Grow it in shade in summer, or wait for the fall window.

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 July USA