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.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant runner beans is to examine the USDA zone info for Kansas City.

Planting Calendar for Runner beans

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant runner beans until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant runner beans in Kansas City 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 runner beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your runner beans may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your runner beans indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Kansas City the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Kansas City is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Kansas City last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your runner beans in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Kansas City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Kansas City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Kansas City.