Zone 9b Planting Calendar

What to do

Direct-sow roots, peas, and leafy greens into the cool band; set out broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and onions as transplants. Start tomatoes 5–6 weeks and peppers 8 weeks before the set-out date in your column so they carry size into the short warm windows. The table states planting bands: when to sow or set out, not how long a crop can stay in the bed. A pepper that takes in the spring window may keep producing after that sow window has closed.

Season	Crops	Sacramento / interior CA	Florida Panhandle / Rio Grande Valley (RGV)
Cool-season	broccoli, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, turnips, beets, carrots, cauliflower, celery, parsley, parsnips, potatoes, Swiss chard	Sep 15 – Mar 1 (potatoes after last frost)	Sep – Mar (potatoes Dec–Mar)
Warm-season, spring	bush beans, trellised pole beans, corn, cucumbers, summer squash, cantaloupe, eggplant, okra, peppers, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, tomatillos, winter squash, tomatoes, watermelon	Feb 15 – Apr 15	Feb – Apr (RGV from late February; Panhandle from mid-March)
Warm-season, fall	bush beans, corn, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes	Aug 1 – Sep 15	Jul – Sep (RGV peppers mid-to-late Sep)

Coastal Southern California has no 50-percent frost date to count from. Do not wait on a freeze that most years never comes; use the Sacramento / interior CA column for the cool band and both warm bands.

Pepper transplants in the Rio Grande Valley go out late February through mid-March and again mid-to-late September. Tomato transplants go in mid-February through early March and again mid-September into October; a July planting needs afternoon shade or heat causes blossom drop.

The fall warm band is only the crops listed; hold squash, melon, eggplant, and okra for the next spring window.

A January freeze is expected weather for the cool-season row, not a reason to wait. Potato sprouts can still burn in a freeze, so mulch them if one threatens. On the Panhandle, most of that row can start in September; spinach waits for October, lettuce and peas for January or later.

Arbor takes your zip code at setup, resolves it to zone 9b, and schedules each crop inside these planting bands rather than across the whole frost-free year.

Zone and season notes

A winter low of 25 to 30°F defines 9b against 9a’s 20 to 25°F — about one USDA half-step milder — but the calendar shape is the same heat inversion. Across Sacramento, the coast, the Panhandle, and the Rio Grande Valley, treat February 10 as a Central Valley number, not a coast or Panhandle date. Higher elevation inside 9b runs later and cooler than the valley floor.

Mild winters do not mean a thin cool season. The Florida Panhandle’s cool window runs September through March in one stretch, and the Rio Grande Valley treats fall and winter as a second full growing season rather than a stopgap between summer crops. On the Sacramento / interior CA dates, mid-February through early March is when cool-season and warm-season planting overlap — both bands are open at once.

Variety choice matters as much as dates. The hot-climate notes in growing tomatoes and growing peppers cover heat-tolerant types and the midsummer stall; plants that drop blossoms in July heat typically resume as nights cool.