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 determining when you can plant black pepper is to look at the USDA zone info for Charleston.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

Frost tolerance for black pepper:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant black pepper until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Charleston. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Charleston and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Charleston it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your black pepper if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Charleston

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Charleston

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