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.

The earliest that you can plant borage in Crete can be estimated by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Borage

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

Borage do well in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

In Crete the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Crete is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Crete you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your borage if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Crete

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Crete

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