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.

The USDA zone info for Muscatine can be reffered to in order to determine when you can plant poppies.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

You can plant poppies a little bit earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Muscatine 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 poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your poppies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Muscatine. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Muscatine is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Muscatine last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your poppies if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Muscatine

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 Muscatine

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