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.

One way of estimating when you can plant chard is to check out the USDA zone info for Luverne.

Planting Calendar for Chard

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

Chard do ok in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chard in Luverne 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 chard and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your chard may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your chard indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is May 15 in Luverne. You should expect an average low temperature of -25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Luverne is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Luverne you get a frost after May 15 be ready to cover your chard if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Luverne

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 Luverne

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