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

The USDA zone info for New Orleans can be looked at to figure out when it's a good idea to plant chinese chives.

Planting Calendar for Chinese chives

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

Chinese chives do ok in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chinese chives in New Orleans is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant chinese chives and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your chinese chives may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chinese chives indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in New Orleans. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for New Orleans is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in New Orleans you get surprised by a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your chinese chives if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for New Orleans

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in New Orleans

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Orleans.