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.

The USDA zone info for Tuscola should be reffered to in order to estimate when it's the best time to plant runner beans.

Planting Calendar for Runner beans

Frost tolerance for runner beans:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant runner beans until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant runner beans in Tuscola 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 runner beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your runner beans may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your runner beans indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Tuscola. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Tuscola is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Tuscola there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your runner beans if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Tuscola

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 Tuscola

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