One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 Atwater should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's possible to plant tomatos.

Planting Calendar for Tomatos

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

Since tomatos do not do well in cold weather it is important to wait until after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

The last month that you can plant tomatos and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your tomatos may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your tomatos indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Atwater. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Atwater is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Atwater there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to protect your tomatos in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Atwater

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Atwater

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