The short version: The days to maturity figure on a seed packet is the number of days from sowing (or, for crops usually transplanted, from planting out) to the first usable harvest, measured under good conditions in a trial garden that was probably not yours. Treat it as a ranking and a best case rather than a promise: a 30-day radish will beat a 60-day one in any garden, but both will take longer in a cold spring or a shaded bed. Check which convention your packet uses, use the figure to see whether a variety fits your season, to compare varieties, and to space your succession sowings, then keep a diary and learn your own numbers.
New gardeners want to know one thing about a packet: when do I get to eat it? Days to maturity is the seed trade's answer, and it is a genuinely useful number as long as you know what it is counting and what it is not.
What "maturity" means on a packet
For vegetables it means the first usable harvest, not the first flower. A tomato may set tiny fruit quickly, but it is not mature until the first fruit is ripe, which can be weeks later. For flowers it usually means the first bloom. And maturity depends on what you are growing the crop for. Salad leaves cut young at 10 cm are "mature" at four to six weeks, while a hearting lettuce from the same packet takes ten to fourteen. Carrots can be pulled as babies at eight to twelve weeks or left to full size at twelve to twenty. Capsicum is mature when green and again, a month later, when red. One packet can carry two honest numbers, which is why some list "baby leaf 25 days, mature 50 days".
It is also a first-harvest figure, not a harvest window. A determinate bush tomato ripens most of its crop over two or three weeks after the first fruit; an indeterminate vine keeps going until the cold stops it. Two varieties with the same days to maturity can behave very differently after that date, and our guide to determinate and indeterminate tomatoes explains why that matters for planning.
When the clock starts
This is the part that catches people out, because three conventions are in print. Companies differ on direct-sown crops such as radish, carrot, beans and corn: some count from the day the seed goes in, others from germination, which can add a week or more to what you will actually see. And for crops normally raised in punnets, chiefly tomatoes, capsicum, chilli and eggplant, the count usually starts on the day you plant the seedling out. A tomato labelled 70 days has already spent six to eight weeks in a pot before those 70 days begin, so from sowing to the first ripe fruit is closer to four months. Australian packets and growing guides often give the figure in weeks rather than days, and some print "from transplant". If the packet does not say, assume transplant crops count from planting out and direct-sown crops from sowing, and expect a little longer.
Why your garden will differ
The number was measured somewhere with a particular soil, season and day length, and the same figure is printed for every climate the packet is sold in. Plants do not grow by the calendar; they grow by accumulated warmth, which agronomists track as growing degree days. The same tomato that ripens in 70 days in a warm garden can take 90 in a cool one, and a heatwave can push a lettuce to bolt before it ever hearts. Day length matters too: onions bulb in response to it, which is why they are sold as short-day, intermediate and long-day types and why a variety can fail completely if sown at the wrong time for your latitude. Water stress, poor soil, shade and pest damage all add days. Cold, wet soil delays germination, soil above about 25 degrees can send lettuce seed into dormancy so that nothing happens at all, and carrot germination falls away once the soil passes about 30 degrees. So the figure is not wrong, it is just local to wherever it was measured, and that may well have been overseas.
Four ways to use the number
1. See whether a variety fits your season
Count forward from your last spring frost for warm-season crops and back from your first autumn frost for anything that must finish before the cold. If the packet says 120 days and your frost-free window is 100, that variety is a gamble, and an earlier one is the answer. The Bureau of Meteorology publishes maps of potential frost days rather than exact dates, and the first and last frost dates quoted by nurseries for the same town can disagree by a fortnight, so use your own records and allow for a late frost arriving a couple of weeks after the "last" one.
2. Compare varieties
Whatever your climate, a 50-day cherry tomato will usually ripen well ahead of a 90-day beefsteak, and a 42-day zucchini should beat a 60-day one. This is the figure's most reliable job. In short-season and cool-zone gardens, choosing the early variety is often the difference between a crop and a green plant in April.
3. Space your succession sowings
Fast crops need frequent sowings and slow ones do not. Radish and salad leaves every one to two weeks, coriander and rocket every two to three weeks, carrots every four to five weeks, bush beans every three to four. Autumn sowings need extra allowance, because shortening days slow growth: add two weeks for direct-sown crops and two to four for transplants. Our guide to succession planting turns this into a calendar.
4. Stagger the harvest
Sow two or three varieties of the same crop with different maturities on the same day and the harvest spreads itself: an early, a mid and a late corn, or a cherry and a beefsteak tomato, rather than one glut.
Typical figures for Australian gardens
These ranges come from Australian growing guides and are counted from sowing unless noted. Expect the short end in warm, well-fed beds and the long end in cool or shaded ones.
- Radish: 4 to 8 weeks, with the small round types fastest.
- Loose-leaf lettuce and rocket: 4 to 8 weeks for first picking; hearting lettuce 10 to 14 weeks.
- Coriander: about 6 weeks for leaf.
- Zucchini: 6 to 8 weeks, picked at about 15 cm.
- Bush beans: 8 to 10 weeks; broad beans 15 to 25 weeks, longest from autumn sowings.
- Tomato: 10 to 12 weeks after planting out, plus 6 to 8 weeks in the punnet.
- Broccoli: 10 to 16 weeks.
- Sweet corn: 12 to 14 weeks.
- Pumpkin: 14 to 20 weeks, the big storage types longest.
- Carrot: 12 to 20 weeks for full size, 8 to 12 for baby carrots.
- Onion: about 6 to 7 months from sowing; garlic about 8 months from planting cloves.
Days to germination is a different number
Packets often give a second figure, days to germination, and it is not part of days to maturity for transplant crops. Lettuce is up in 4 to 10 days, tomato in 7 to 10, zucchini and pumpkin in about 10, coriander in one to three weeks and carrot in up to 21 days. Soil temperature drives it: the warmer the soil within the crop's range, the faster the seed moves. Our guide to the kitchen thermometer test shows how to check.
Keep a diary and learn your own figures
The most accurate days to maturity for your garden is the one you measured. Note the sowing date, the planting-out date, the first harvest and a line about the weather, and within two seasons you will know that your beans take 65 days rather than 56 and your radishes are done in 24. That knowledge is worth more than any packet.
Growing seasons across Australia's climate zones
- Tropical (Cairns and far north Queensland, Darwin and the Top End of the Northern Territory, the Kimberley in Western Australia): no frost and a year-round season, but the wet season and extreme heat stall many temperate crops. Warm-season figures run short; cool-season crops are grown in the dry.
- Subtropical (Brisbane and coastal Queensland, Coffs Harbour and northern New South Wales): a long frost-free season, so packet figures tend to hold or run short. Bolting in heat, not frost, ends most crops.
- Arid and semi-arid (inland Queensland, Broken Hill and Dubbo in New South Wales, Mildura in Victoria, inland South Australia and Western Australia, Alice Springs in the Northern Territory): hot days speed growth but winter frosts and summer extremes cut the season at both ends. Spring and autumn sowings with early varieties do best.
- Temperate (Sydney and New South Wales, Melbourne and Victoria): packet figures are about right in Sydney and run long in Melbourne, where a slow spring adds weeks.
- Mediterranean (Perth and southern Western Australia, Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains in South Australia): warm dry summers push figures short for warm-season crops, provided the water keeps up.
- Cool and alpine (Hobart and Tasmania, Canberra and the ACT, Ballarat in Victoria, Orange and Armidale on the New South Wales tablelands, and the alpine country of the Snowy Mountains and the Victorian high country): the shortest frost-free window, sometimes under four months at altitude. Early varieties, raised under cover, are the rule, and add two to three weeks to most packet figures.
These are broad groupings. Frost pockets and coastal gardens a few kilometres apart can differ by weeks, which is why local records beat any map.
Frequently asked questions
Is days to maturity counted from sowing or from transplanting?
For crops normally raised in punnets, such as tomatoes and capsicum, usually from planting out. For direct-sown crops, usually from sowing, though some companies count from germination. If the packet does not say, assume those two rules.
Why is my crop later than the packet says?
Cool weather, short days, shade, dry spells and poor soil all add days. The figure was measured under good conditions somewhere else. Use it to rank varieties, not to book a harvest date.
Can I use the figure to plan autumn sowings?
Yes, but add two weeks for direct-sown crops and two to four for transplants, because growth slows as the days shorten, and count back from your first expected frost.
Do flowers have a days to maturity figure?
Most annual flower packets give days or weeks to first bloom. Use it the same way to keep a bed in continuous colour by sowing in batches.
Read the number as a ranking with a start date attached, and it becomes one of the most useful things on the packet. The Bureau of Meteorology's explainer on frost and its maps of potential frost days are a good place to start on your own season length.
Related growing guides
- Succession planting: how to harvest continuously, not all at once
- The kitchen thermometer test: when your soil is actually ready
- The Australian sowing almanac
Pick an early and a late and let them stagger themselves: browse our tomato seeds, radish seeds and the full range of vegetable seeds.