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.

The USDA zone info for Los Angeles should be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant lettuce.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Los Angeles 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lettuce may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on January 31 in Los Angeles. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 35°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Los Angeles may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Los Angeles you get surprised by a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your lettuce in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Los Angeles

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Los Angeles

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Los Angeles.