When to Plant Sweet corn in Santa Clara, CA

One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can determine when it's the best time to plant sweet corn in Santa Clara by referring to the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Sweet corn

Frost tolerance for sweet corn: Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant: Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Sweet corn do ok in mild cold which means that you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sweet corn
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sweet corn
Probably not a good time to plant sweet corn

The earliest that you can plant sweet corn in Santa Clara is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant sweet corn and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your sweet corn may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sweet corn indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Santa Clara. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Santa Clara is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Clara you get a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your sweet corn 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 Low25°F
Highest Expected Low30°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.