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.

The USDA zone info for Marion should be reviewed to determine when it's the best time to plant gherkins.

Planting Calendar for Gherkins

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

You can not plant gherkins until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant gherkins in Marion is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant gherkins and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your gherkins may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your gherkins indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Marion the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Marion is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Marion you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your gherkins if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Marion

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 Marion

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