One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 determine when it's the best time to plant parsnip.

Planting Calendar for Parsnip

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

Parsnip do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant parsnip 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 parsnip and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your parsnip may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your parsnip indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on January 31 in Los Angeles. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 35°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Los Angeles is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Los Angeles you get a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your parsnip if you have a 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.