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 determining when you can plant carrots is to examine the USDA zone info for Durham.

Planting Calendar for Carrots

Frost tolerance for carrots:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Carrots do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant carrots in Durham 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 carrots and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your carrots may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your carrots indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Durham. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Durham is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Durham you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your carrots if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Durham

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

Plants to Grow in Durham

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