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 making a decision about when to plant garden cress is to refer to the USDA zone info for Rapid City.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

Garden cress are not cold tolerant which means that it's important to wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Rapid City is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Rapid City. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Rapid City is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Rapid City last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to cover your garden cress in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rapid City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Rapid City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rapid City.