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.

A way of determining when it's the best time to plant garden cress is to examine the USDA zone info for Waukee.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Since garden cress do not do well in cold weather it is necessary to wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Waukee 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 garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your garden cress indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Waukee. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Waukee may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Waukee last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your garden cress if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Waukee

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 Waukee

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