Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. 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 a good idea to plant sunflowers is to examine the USDA zone info for Pittsfield.

Planting Calendar for Sunflowers

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

Since sunflowers require warm weather you have to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Pittsfield is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Pittsfield it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your sunflowers in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Pittsfield

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 Pittsfield

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