One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 first opportunity to plant tagetes in Eldridge can be determined by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Tagetes

Frost tolerance for tagetes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant tagetes until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant tagetes in Eldridge is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant tagetes and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your tagetes may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your tagetes indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Eldridge. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Eldridge may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Eldridge you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your tagetes if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Eldridge

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 Eldridge

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