When to Plant Green Beans in Kentucky: Earliest and Latest Dates by Region

What Kentucky’s extension calendar says about green beans, copied region by region, plus the frost record at Louisville International Airport, Lexington Bluegrass Airport, and Bowling Green Warren County Airport.

By Paul Gunder · How we check our sources

Updated November 11, 2026

Figures checked against their sources on November 11, 2026; next check May 8, 2027.

Open University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension’s calendar to the green bean line under the heading “Beans (snap)” and you find 3 regions, each with its own spring and fall entries. The earliest date in the table is April 10 in Western Kentucky, and the latest is May 1 in Eastern Kentucky, a gap of 21 days. Whether the dates mean seed or set-out plants is left unsaid for this row.

Green Beans: the Kentucky table

Each cell in the table is copied as the source prints it.

Green bean planting dates in Kentucky, as printed by University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension (one row per region, none averaged)
Region	Earliest safe planting date	Latest safe planting date
Western Kentucky	Apr 10	Aug 1
Central Kentucky	Apr 25	July 25
Eastern Kentucky	May 1	July 15

What to know about this source

The two halves of its table run in opposite directions: the earliest-date columns read Western, Central, Eastern, while the latest-date columns read Eastern, Central, Western. A note under the table says the latest dates are based on early-maturing varieties, and that mid-season and late-maturing varieties need to be planted 15 to 30 days earlier than the latest date.

Do green beans get an indoor start?

The general sources have little to say about starting green beans indoors, since UNH has them go straight into the ground.

UNH lists beans as a seed crop sown after the last frost, with no indoor start, so the saved sources give no seed-starting weeks for beans at all.

UNH’s own timing for green beans is after the last frost, so Kentucky’s printed window and UNH’s rule of thumb can be set side by side.

Indoor start for green beans: what each saved source says (one row per source, none averaged)
Source	What it says
University of New Hampshire	Not started indoors; sow seed after the last frost

Frost dates for Kentucky cities

The dates come straight from NOAA’s frost and freeze normals at the 32°F threshold; the frost dates tool shows earlier and later odds for the same stations.

No city is assigned to a region below, because the source does not assign them.

NOAA 1991-2020 normals for Kentucky stations: 50% last spring and first fall 32°F dates
Station	Last spring 32°F	First fall 32°F	Region in the calendar
Louisville International Airport, Kentucky	March 31	November 7	Not stated by the source
Lexington Bluegrass Airport, Kentucky	April 13	October 28	Not stated by the source
Bowling Green Warren County Airport, Kentucky	April 5	October 31	Not stated by the source
London Corbin Airport, Kentucky	April 15	October 25	Not stated by the source

Worked example

Start from Louisville International Airport: the station’s median last spring freeze is March 31, and its median first fall freeze is November 7.

The calendar does not say which region Louisville International Airport belongs to, so set the date against the rows at each end. Western Kentucky opens April 10, 10 days after that date; Eastern Kentucky opens May 1, 31 days after it.

On the fall side, Eastern Kentucky’s last planting date of July 15 leaves 115 days before the November 7 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 chapter says its planting dates are approximate and should be adjusted to local weather.

A late cold snap after a mild March is the usual way these windows go wrong; keep a sheet or row cover on hand.

Sources (3)