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.

In Chester you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant beets by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Beets

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

Beets are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can plant them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant beets in Chester 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 beets and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your beets may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your beets indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Chester. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Chester is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Chester it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your beets if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Chester

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Chester

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