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 Portage can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant gherkins.

Planting Calendar for Gherkins

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

It's not a good idea to plant gherkins until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

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

Last Frost Date

In Portage the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portage is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Portage last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to cover your gherkins if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portage

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 Portage

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