One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

You should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant stocks by checking out the USDA zone info for Bedford.

Planting Calendar for Stocks

Frost tolerance for stocks:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Stocks do well in very little cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The last month that you can plant stocks and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your stocks may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your stocks indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Bedford. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Bedford is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Bedford it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your stocks if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bedford

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Bedford

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