The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant spinach is to examine the USDA zone info for Santa Clara.

Planting Calendar for Spinach

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

Spinach do ok in some cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant spinach in Santa Clara 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 spinach and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your spinach may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your spinach indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on February 15 in Santa Clara. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Clara may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Clara you get surprised by a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your spinach in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Clara

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 Santa Clara

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Clara.