Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can figure out when it's possible to plant chives in Gardner by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chives

Frost tolerance for chives:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Chives do ok in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chives in Gardner 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 chives and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your chives may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chives indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Gardner is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Gardner it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your chives in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gardner

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°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 -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Gardner

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