Terms of use

By using USGrowersGuide.com (“the site”) you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use it.

1. What the dates on this site are

Every frost date here comes from NOAA's 1991–2020 Climate Normals and is a probability, not a forecast. The default figure is a median: in half of years, the freeze falls later than the date shown. It describes thirty years of the past at one weather station. It does not predict this year, and nothing on this site could.

Hardiness zones come from the USDA's 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map and describe the average annual coldest night over a thirty-year period. A zone is not a promise about any particular winter.

Days to maturity, sowing offsets, succession intervals and heat tolerance are conventional horticultural guidance, not measurements. They vary by cultivar, by soil, by how much shelter a plant gets, and by how the season actually runs. Where a page shows a figure of this kind it says so.

2. Use your own judgement, and your extension service

The tools cannot see your garden. They do not know about your slope, your frost pocket, your wall that holds heat, your soil, or the microclimate that makes your street a week ahead of the next one. A weather station some kilometres away is the best available anchor, not a description of your ground.

For decisions that matter, check against your state's cooperative extension service. They publish locally validated guidance and are the authority this site defers to.

3. No warranty

USGrowersGuide is provided as is, without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the site will be available, that it is free of errors, or that any figure on it is accurate or fit for a particular purpose. Published source data can be revised, and this site can carry mistakes.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for any loss arising from use of this site — including crop loss, wasted seed, wasted season, or any commercial decision. Do not use this site as the sole basis for a commercial growing decision.

4. The email list

The sign-up bar at the foot of the page is optional and free. Subscribing gets you seasonal frost and sowing reminders; it does not create an account, unlock anything, or oblige either of us to anything. Every tool on the site works exactly the same whether you subscribe or not.

Every email carries an unsubscribe link and unsubscribing takes effect immediately. We may stop sending, change what the emails contain, or close the list entirely — this is a free newsletter, not a service you are owed. Nothing in section 3 stops applying to advice that arrives by email: a date in a reminder is the same kind of figure as a date on the site, with the same limits.

What is collected when you subscribe, and who stores it, is set out in the privacy policy.

5. Fair use of the site

Read it, use the tools, link to it, quote it with attribution. Please do not hammer it with automated requests, attempt to disrupt it, or scrape it in a way that costs more to serve than a person reading it would. The underlying climate data is published by NOAA, the USDA and PRISM, and you are better off taking it from them directly — every page names its sources for exactly that reason.

6. Other sites

This site cites NOAA, the USDA, PRISM and the Census Bureau as the sources of its data, by name and by station or dataset, so that any figure can be checked against the original. It does not link to them.

The outbound links on the site are Google's analytics opt-out and our email provider's privacy policy, both on the privacy page, and Amazon search links on the four tool pages. We do not control any of those destinations and are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices.

The Amazon links are affiliate links: as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. They cost you nothing extra. Each one opens a search rather than a product we selected, because we have not tested any of this equipment and do not rank it — treat those links as a starting point, not as a recommendation, and note that section 3's no-warranty applies to them in full. No commission changes anything else on the site: the freeze dates come from NOAA and the zones from the USDA, and neither moves for a product.

7. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the site operator is located, and any dispute shall be resolved under those laws.

8. Changes

These terms may change. The date at the top of this page moves only when the wording does, not when the site is rebuilt.

Questions go to [email protected]. See also the privacy policy and what this site is.