One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

The USDA zone info for Homestead should be reffered to in order to figure out when you can plant chives.

Planting Calendar for Chives

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

You can plant chives earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant chives in Homestead 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. If you are starting your chives indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Homestead the average date of last frost happens on January 31. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Homestead and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Homestead it frosts late in the year after January 31 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your chives if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Homestead

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Homestead

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