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.

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Manhattan should be determined by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce can survive in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is 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 can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Manhattan last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your lettuce if you have one of those late frosts.

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.