One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant poppies is to refer to the USDA zone info for Sandwich.

Planting Calendar for Poppies

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

Since poppies are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant poppies in Sandwich 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 poppies and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your poppies may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your poppies indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Sandwich and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Sandwich last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your poppies if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Sandwich

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 Sandwich

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