One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can figure out when you can plant pumpkins in Novato by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Pumpkins

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

It's probably not a good idea to plant pumpkins until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

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

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Novato may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Novato you get a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your pumpkins in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Novato

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 Novato

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