One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of determining when it's possible to plant tagetes is to check out the USDA zone info for San Francisco.

Planting Calendar for Tagetes

Frost tolerance for tagetes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Tagetes do not do well in cold weather which tells us that you need to wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant tagetes in San Francisco 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 tagetes and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your tagetes may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your tagetes indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is January 31 in San Francisco. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 35°F.

Since the USDA zone info for San Francisco is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in San Francisco there is a last frost after January 31 so always be ready to protect your tagetes in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Francisco

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in San Francisco

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Francisco.