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.

It's a good idea to determine when it's the best time to plant tagetes by using the USDA zone info for Rochester.

Planting Calendar for Tagetes

Frost tolerance for tagetes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Tagetes do not do well in cold weather which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant tagetes in Rochester is May. However, you really should wait until June if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant tagetes and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your tagetes may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your tagetes indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Rochester. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Rochester is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Rochester it frosts late in the year after May 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your tagetes if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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