Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant lettuce is to check out the USDA zone info for Cherokee.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce can survive in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Cherokee. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Cherokee is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Cherokee you get a frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your lettuce if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Cherokee

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Cherokee

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