One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant purple rock cress is to look at the USDA zone info for El Dorado.

Planting Calendar for Purple Rock Cress

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

Purple Rock Cress are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant purple rock cress in El Dorado 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 purple rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your purple rock cress may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your purple rock cress indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on March 15 in El Dorado. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for El Dorado and it is different every year. Half of the time in El Dorado you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your purple rock cress if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for El Dorado

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in El Dorado

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Dorado.