One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant chives is to refer to the USDA zone info for Nixa.

Planting Calendar for Chives

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

Chives do ok in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chives in Nixa 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 chives and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your chives may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your chives indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Nixa. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Nixa may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Nixa you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your chives in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Nixa

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 Nixa

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