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.

It's possible to figure out when it's a good idea to plant bittercress by referring to the USDA zone info for Valparaiso.

Planting Calendar for Bittercress

Frost tolerance for bittercress:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant bittercress a bit earlier in the year because they are barely cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant bittercress in Valparaiso is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant bittercress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your bittercress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your bittercress indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Valparaiso is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Valparaiso it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your bittercress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Valparaiso

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 Valparaiso

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