One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 determining when it's a good idea to plant cauliflower is to check out the USDA zone info for Austin.

Planting Calendar for Cauliflower

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

Since cauliflower are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant cauliflower in Austin is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cauliflower and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your cauliflower may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your cauliflower indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on May 15 in Austin. It might get as low as -25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Austin is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Austin you get a frost after May 15 be ready to cover your cauliflower if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Austin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Austin

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