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.

In Manhattan you can figure out when it's the best time to plant chives by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chives

Frost tolerance for chives:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since chives are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Manhattan. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Manhattan is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Manhattan you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your chives in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Manhattan

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 Manhattan

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