Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 it's a good idea to plant zucchini is to examine the USDA zone info for Dover.

Planting Calendar for Zucchini

Frost tolerance for zucchini:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

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

The earliest that you can plant zucchini in Dover 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 zucchini and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your zucchini may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your zucchini indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Dover. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Dover is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Dover last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your zucchini in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Dover

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

Plants to Grow in Dover

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