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 way of determining when you can plant garden cress is to refer to the USDA zone info for Avenal.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

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

Since garden cress are not cold tolerant you really should wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Avenal 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 garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Avenal the average date of last frost happens on February 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Avenal and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Avenal you get surprised by a frost after February 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your garden cress in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Avenal

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Avenal

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