One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 you can plant garden cress is to refer to the USDA zone info for Newport.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant garden cress until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Newport 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 garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Newport. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Newport is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Newport you get a frost after March 15 be ready to cover your garden cress if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Newport

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 Newport

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