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 USDA zone info for Harvey should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant pumpkins.

Planting Calendar for Pumpkins

Frost tolerance for pumpkins:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

You should not plant pumpkins until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant pumpkins in Harvey 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 pumpkins and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your pumpkins may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your pumpkins 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 Harvey. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Harvey is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Harvey you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your pumpkins in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Harvey

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 Harvey

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