The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant flowering kale is to examine the USDA zone info for Fort Smith.

Planting Calendar for Flowering Kale

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

You can plant flowering kale just a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant flowering kale in Fort Smith 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 flowering kale and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your flowering kale may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your flowering kale indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Fort Smith. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Fort Smith is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Fort Smith last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your flowering kale if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fort Smith

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 Fort Smith

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fort Smith.