When to Plant Garden cress in Chelsea, MA

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.

You will be able to estimate when it's a good idea to plant garden cress by looking at the USDA zone info for Chelsea.


Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Since garden cress do not do well in cold weather it's important to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant garden cress
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant garden cress
Probably not a good time to plant garden cress

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Chelsea is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your garden cress indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Chelsea. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Chelsea is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Chelsea there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your garden cress if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Chelsea

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-5°F
Highest Expected Low0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Chelsea

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