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 common way of estimating when to plant bell peppers is to refer to the USDA zone info for Arcadia.

Planting Calendar for Bell Peppers

Frost tolerance for bell peppers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Bell Peppers are not cold tolerant which means that you must wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant bell peppers in Arcadia 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 bell peppers and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your bell peppers may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your bell peppers indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Arcadia is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Arcadia you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your bell peppers if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Arcadia

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 Arcadia

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