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.

One way of determining when to plant rock cress is to examine the USDA zone info for Madison.

Planting Calendar for Rock Cress

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

Rock Cress tend to make it in a bit of cold which means that you can plant them earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant rock cress in Madison 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 rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your rock cress may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your rock cress indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Madison. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Madison may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Madison you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your rock cress if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

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 Madison

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