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 Elwood should be used to determine when you can plant purple rock cress.

Planting Calendar for Purple Rock Cress

Frost tolerance for purple rock cress:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Purple Rock Cress are very cold tolerant which tells us that you can get them planted much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant purple rock cress in Elwood 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 purple rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your purple rock cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your purple rock cress indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Elwood is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Elwood it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your purple rock cress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Elwood

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 Elwood

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