When to Plant Flowering Tobacco in Portland, ME

One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

In Portland you can figure out when it's the best time to plant flowering tobacco by reviewing the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Flowering Tobacco

Frost tolerance for flowering tobacco: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost has passed.

Flowering Tobacco require warm weather which tells us that you really should wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant flowering tobacco
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant flowering tobacco
Probably not a good time to plant flowering tobacco

The earliest that you can plant flowering tobacco in Portland 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 flowering tobacco and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your flowering tobacco may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your flowering tobacco indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Portland. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Portland is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Portland it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your flowering tobacco if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portland

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 Portland

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