One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant mustard greens is to look at the USDA zone info for West Des Moines.

Planting Calendar for Mustard greens

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

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

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

Last Frost Date

In West Des Moines the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for West Des Moines and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in West Des Moines last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your mustard greens in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for West Des Moines

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 West Des Moines

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Des Moines.