When to Plant Cucumbers in Alabama: Spring and Fall Dates for Central, North and South Alabama
Planting dates for cucumbers from Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Alabama, with 50% frost dates from NOAA for Huntsville International Airport, Birmingham Airport, and Montgomery Airport and one worked case.
Updated
Figures checked against their sources on ; next check .
Alabama Cooperative Extension System gives cucumbers their own row, with dates for 3 parts of the state. No exact days appear in the first column. It reads Central Alabama (Apr. 15-May 15), South Alabama (About 10 days earlier than Central Alabama), and North Alabama (About 10 days later than Central Alabama).
The cucumber windows by part of the state
Alabama’s chart gives 50 - 65 days to maturity for the row, counted from planting seed or setting transplants in the garden.
| Part of the state | Spring planting | Fall planting |
|---|---|---|
| Central Alabama | Apr. 15-May 15 | July 1-20 |
| South Alabama | About 10 days earlier than Central Alabama | About 10 days later than Central Alabama |
| North Alabama | About 10 days later than Central Alabama | About 10 days earlier than Central Alabama |
Reading the Alabama Cooperative Extension System table
Alabama’s chart is written for Central Alabama and gives spring and fall as a month or a short range. The same chart lists recommended cultivars, days to maturity, the seed or plants needed for 100 feet and the row and plant spacing.
Varieties Alabama names
The source names 6 varieties for cucumbers: Calypso, Explorer, Dasher II, Fanfare, Salad Bush, and General Lee.
Nothing here is our pick. The list is copied from the source, and varieties it does not name are left out.
Starting cucumbers indoors
If you raise your own transplants, count backward from the set-out date. UNH’s fact sheet allows 3 to 4 weeks for that stage, and the table lists what the others say.
Only UNH puts a number of weeks on cucumbers; the Minnesota row in the table is a handling tip, not a schedule.
In the garden itself, UNH sows cucumbers once the soil reaches 70 °F, which a soil thermometer answers better than any calendar.
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| University of New Hampshire | 3 to 4 weeks from seed to transplant; 1 to 2 weeks after the last frost is safe to set out |
| University of Minnesota | Cucumbers and squash transplant poorly, so raise them in fiber or paper pots that break down in the soil |
Where the frost dates fall in Alabama
NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals give nine probability levels for each station; the table keeps only the middle one, the even-odds date, and the links open the rest.
A station is tied to a region of the calendar only where the source’s own wording makes that call; the rest are left blank on purpose.
| Station | Last spring 32°F | First fall 32°F | Region in Alabama’s calendar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huntsville International Airport, Alabama | March 24 | November 8 | North Alabama |
| Birmingham Airport, Alabama | March 21 | November 11 | Central Alabama |
| Montgomery Airport, Alabama | March 13 | November 13 | Central Alabama |
| Mobile Downtown Airport, Alabama | February 21 | December 6 | South Alabama |
Worked example
For a gardener near Birmingham Airport, NOAA’s even-odds frost dates are March 21 in spring and November 11 in fall.
Here the window starts April 15 (25 days after the median last freeze) and ends May 15 (55 days after it), under the Central Alabama heading.
On the fall side, Central Alabama’s last planting date of July 20 leaves 114 days before the November 11 median first freeze.
The offsets will shift by a few days with every revision of the normals, so use them as a rough guide to which row to trust and not as a deadline.
Before you rely on these dates
The page carries a review date of September 2018, older than most of the calendars used on this site.
Treat the table as a starting range and look at the ten-day forecast before setting out anything tender.
Sources (4)
- Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Planting Guide for Home Gardening in Alabama, ANR-0063, reviewed September 2018 aces.edu
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, annual and seasonal normals (frost/freeze probabilities by station) ncei.noaa.gov
- University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, Growing Vegetables: When to Plant Your Vegetable Garden (fact sheet) extension.unh.edu
- University of Minnesota Extension, Starting seeds indoors (page reviewed 2026) extension.umn.edu