2026 sowing calendar for your raised bed (DACH)

Every sowing calendar on the internet tells you the same thing: "Start tomatoes indoors in February, plant out mid-May." And every one of them is wrong for half the people reading it.

My neighbour, Mrs Schneider in Zürich-Affoltern, sowed by a calendar from a German gardening magazine in 2024. Her radishes came up three weeks late, because the calendar was written for northern Germany and she lives at 540 metres above Lake Zürich. The calendar knew nothing about her location. It only knew the month.

Here's my calendar for 2026. It's sorted by month, because that's practical. But read the catch first — otherwise it'll go for you the way it went for Mrs Schneider.

The catch: a calendar doesn't know your garden

A printed sowing calendar is an average. It assumes you live somewhere in the middle of Germany, Austria or Switzerland, at normal altitude, with average weather.

But you live in a specific place. And places differ:

• Krems an der Donau (Pannonian climate): last frost often as early as the start of May. You can plant out a week earlier than the calendar says.
• Munich (zone 7b, higher up): last frost into 20 May. The calendar says "mid-May" and kills your seedlings.
• Raised bed vs ground bed: a raised bed warms up a few days faster in spring. You can direct-sow a little earlier than someone with flat ground.

So take the calendar below as a frame, not a law. The fixed rule isn't the date — it's this: tender, heat-loving plants you started indoors only go into the bed after the ice saints (around 16 May in DACH — the ice saints are the traditional late-frost benchmark days in mid-May). Everything else follows your location.

January — February: plan, don't sow

Nothing grows in January. That's good. Use the time to plan: how much bed area do you have, what do you actually want to eat, which plants get along. Plan in January and you'll sow calmly in March.

February (indoors): the slow starters begin. Sow pepper and aubergine on the windowsill from early February — they need 8-10 weeks to a seedling. Tomatoes from mid- to late February, not earlier (otherwise they're too big and leggy before they're allowed out).

March: the first direct sowing

As soon as the soil in the raised bed reaches 5-8 °C — and in a raised bed that's often by mid-March, earlier than in a ground bed — start the cold-tolerant crops:

• Radishes — the classic, 4 weeks to harvest
• Spinach — tolerates light frost, likes the cool
• Peas — straight into the bed, add the support frame right away
• Carrots — slow, but possible now
• Pak choi — loves the cool weeks, turns bitter in summer

Indoors, continue: start lettuce and kohlrabi for an early April start.

April: the dense month begins

April lies. The sun tempts you, but ground frost in the first week of May hits DACH every other year. Don't let it lure you into planting out.

Direct-sow in April:

• Lettuce (loose-leaf and head)
• Chard
• Carrots (main sowing)
• Beetroot
• Beans — but only late April, they hate cold soil

Plant out: the lettuce and kohlrabi you started can go out, they take a bit of cold. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers: not yet. Even if the April sun is blazing.

May: before and after the ice saints

May is the densest month of the whole gardening year, and it has a sharp dividing line: the ice saints around 11-15 May.

Before the ice saints (1-15 May): keep direct-sowing — beans, a second round of radishes, more lettuce. Nothing heat-loving planted out yet.

After the ice saints (from around 16 May): now everything you've been growing indoors since February goes out. Tomatoes, peppers, aubergine. Plus the seedlings from the garden centre: cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkin. This is the big planting day of the year.

In Krems you can go a few days earlier (Pannonian climate), in Munich a few days later (higher, colder). When in doubt: three days too late beats one frost night too early.

June: re-sow wherever space opens up

In June you harvest the first radishes, the spring lettuce, soon the peas. Every harvested plant leaves a hole. Don't leave it empty:

• Carrots after peas (the peas leave nitrogen behind, the carrots are happy, the soil is loosened)
• Bush beans as a second round
• Lettuce in the shade of the big tomato plants

Re-sow in June and you harvest twice in autumn — same area, no extra work.

July — August: the autumn and winter sowing

The mistake many beginners make: in July the garden is "done" and they stop sowing. Wrong. Now you sow for autumn and winter:

• July: lamb's lettuce, autumn radishes, bush beans (last round), winter spinach from late July
• August: lamb's lettuce (main sowing for the winter half-year), spinach, Asian salads, winter lettuces

September — October: the last direct sowings

• September: lamb's lettuce still works, plant garlic (it overwinters and is harvested next summer), winter onions
• October: garlic (late planting), clear the bed, mulch, prepare for winter rest

November — December: harvest and rest

Harvest lamb's lettuce and winter spinach if you sowed in summer. Otherwise the bed rests. And you start at January again: planning.

The sowing calendar at a glance

Month	Start indoors	Direct-sow	Plant out
Feb	Pepper, aubergine, tomato	—	—
Mar	Lettuce, kohlrabi	Radish, spinach, pea, carrot, pak choi	—
Apr	—	Lettuce, chard, carrot, beetroot, bean (late)	Lettuce, kohlrabi
May	—	Bean, radish	after ice saints: tomato, pepper, cucumber, courgette
Jun	—	Carrot, bush bean (re-sow)	—
Jul–Aug	—	Lamb's lettuce, winter spinach, Asian salad	—
Sep–Oct	—	Lamb's lettuce, garlic	—

What a static calendar can't do for you

This table is a frame. What it doesn't know: whether your last frost is on 3 or 18 May. Whether your raised bed stands windy and dries out faster. Whether your pea harvest frees the bed for carrots.

That's exactly what Erntezeit works out: you enter postcode and bed size, I pull the frost data of the last 10 years for your point and build the calendar to the day — not to the month. But honestly: what's above works without me too. Print the table, pin it to the shed, and correct the May dates for your location.

Plant something nice.

🦔 Stachi