One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when to plant black pepper is to use the USDA zone info for Alameda.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

Frost tolerance for black pepper:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant black pepper until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in Alameda 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 black pepper and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your black pepper may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your black pepper indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on January 31 in Alameda. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Alameda is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Alameda there is a last frost after January 31 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your black pepper if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alameda

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Alameda

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