When to Plant Tomatos in Hays, KS

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can determine when it's possible to plant tomatos in Hays by reviewing the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Tomatos

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

It's a bad idea to plant tomatos until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant tomatos
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant tomatos
Probably not a good time to plant tomatos

The earliest that you can plant tomatos in Hays 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 tomatos and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your tomatos may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your tomatos indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Hays. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Hays is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Hays there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your tomatos if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Hays

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 Hays

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