One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when you can plant nigella is to examine the USDA zone info for Oneonta.

Planting Calendar for Nigella

Frost tolerance for nigella:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Nigella are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can get them planted much earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant nigella in Oneonta is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant nigella and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your nigella may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your nigella indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Oneonta. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oneonta may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Oneonta there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your nigella if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oneonta

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Oneonta

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oneonta.