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 broccoli in Ponchatoula can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Broccoli

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

You can plant broccoli a little earlier in the year because they do well in moderate cold.

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

Last Frost Date

In Ponchatoula the average date of last frost happens on March 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Ponchatoula is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Ponchatoula it frosts late in the year after March 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your broccoli if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ponchatoula

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Ponchatoula

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