One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

A common way of making a decision about when you can plant nicotiana is to look at the USDA zone info for Baltimore.

Planting Calendar for Nicotiana

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant nicotiana until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant nicotiana in Baltimore 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 nicotiana and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your nicotiana may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your nicotiana indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Baltimore. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Baltimore is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Baltimore it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your nicotiana in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Baltimore

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Baltimore

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