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.

In San Jose you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant nicotiana by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Nicotiana

Frost tolerance for nicotiana:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant nicotiana until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant nicotiana in San Jose 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 nicotiana and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your nicotiana may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your nicotiana indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in San Jose. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for San Jose is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in San Jose it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your nicotiana if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Jose

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 San Jose

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Jose.