One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant cilantro is to refer to the USDA zone info for Fort Collins.

Planting Calendar for Cilantro

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

Since cilantro are barely cold tolerant you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Fort Collins. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Fort Collins is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Fort Collins it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your cilantro if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fort Collins

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Fort Collins

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fort Collins.