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.

One way of estimating when it's possible to plant chard is to look at the USDA zone info for Shelbyville.

Planting Calendar for Chard

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

Chard do well in mild cold which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chard in Shelbyville 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 chard and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your chard may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your chard indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Shelbyville. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Shelbyville is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Shelbyville last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your chard in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Shelbyville

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 Shelbyville

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