One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Fairfax should be reffered to in order to determine when it's a good idea to plant borage.

Planting Calendar for Borage

Frost tolerance for borage:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Borage can survive in mild cold which means that you can plant them a little earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant borage in Fairfax is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on February 15 in Fairfax. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Fairfax is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Fairfax it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your borage in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Fairfax

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 Fairfax

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