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.

In Crete you can figure out when it's the best time to plant salsify by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Salsify

Frost tolerance for salsify:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Salsify do ok in some cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant salsify in Crete is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant salsify and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your salsify may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your salsify indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Crete. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Crete is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Crete it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your salsify in the event of a surprise 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.