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.

You should be able to estimate when it's a good idea to plant lettuce by referring to the USDA zone info for Vail.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce do well in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Vail 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your lettuce may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Vail the average date of last frost happens on May 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Vail is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Vail it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to cover your lettuce if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Vail

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°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 -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Vail

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