One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 best time to plant banana in Elkhart should be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Banana

Frost tolerance for banana:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Banana do not do well in cold weather which means that you need to wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant banana in Elkhart 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 banana and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your banana may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your banana indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Elkhart. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

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

USDA Zone Info for Elkhart

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Elkhart

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