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.

By referring to the USDA zone info for Smithfield you should be able to determine when it's possible to plant black pepper.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

Frost tolerance for black pepper:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant black pepper until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in Smithfield 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 black pepper and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your black pepper may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your black pepper indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on March 15 in Smithfield. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Smithfield may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Smithfield last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to protect your black pepper if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Smithfield

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 Smithfield

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