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.

In Madison you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant asparagus by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Asparagus

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

Asparagus do ok in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant asparagus in Madison 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 asparagus and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your asparagus may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your asparagus indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Madison. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Madison and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Madison you get a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your asparagus if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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