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.

The USDA zone info for Mount Vernon should be looked at to determine when it's possible to plant nigella.

Planting Calendar for Nigella

Frost tolerance for nigella:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since nigella are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant nigella in Mount Vernon is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant nigella and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your nigella may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your nigella indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Mount Vernon. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Mount Vernon is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Mount Vernon you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your nigella if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mount Vernon

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Mount Vernon

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mount Vernon.