One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

One way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant chives is to look at the USDA zone info for Cocoa.

Planting Calendar for Chives

Frost tolerance for chives:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Chives tend to make it in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant chives in Cocoa 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 chives and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your chives may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chives indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on February 15 in Cocoa. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Cocoa is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Cocoa last frost occurs after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your chives in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Cocoa

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 Cocoa

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