One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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.

A common way of figuring out when to plant artichokes is to examine the USDA zone info for Minden.

Planting Calendar for Artichokes

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

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

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Minden. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Minden is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Minden you get a frost after March 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your artichokes if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Minden

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Minden

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