One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

In Dardanelle you can figure out when you can plant chard by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chard

Frost tolerance for chard:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Chard do well in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chard in Dardanelle 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 chard and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your chard may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chard indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Dardanelle is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Dardanelle you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your chard in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Dardanelle

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 Dardanelle

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