One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant flax is to examine the USDA zone info for Rochester.

Planting Calendar for Flax

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

You can plant flax a little bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Rochester. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rochester is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Rochester it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your flax in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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