When to Plant Garden cress in Watertown, SD

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of figuring out when it's possible to plant garden cress is to refer to the USDA zone info for Watertown.


Planting Calendar for Garden cress

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant garden cress until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant garden cress
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant garden cress
Probably not a good time to plant garden cress

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Watertown is May. However, you really should wait until June 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Watertown the average date of last frost happens on May 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -30°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Watertown is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Watertown it frosts late in the year after May 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your garden cress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Watertown

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)September 15
Lowest Expected Low-30°F
Highest Expected Low-25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -25°F.

Plants to Grow in Watertown

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