One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

One way of determining when it's a good idea to plant centaurea is to check out the USDA zone info for Los Banos.

Planting Calendar for Centaurea

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

You can plant centaurea a little earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant centaurea in Los Banos 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 centaurea and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your centaurea may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your centaurea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on February 15 in Los Banos. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Los Banos is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Los Banos it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your centaurea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Los Banos

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 Los Banos

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