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.

You should be able to estimate when it's the best time to plant portulaca by referring to the USDA zone info for Freehold.

Planting Calendar for Portulaca

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

You can not plant portulaca until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant portulaca in Freehold 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 portulaca and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your portulaca may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your portulaca indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Freehold. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Freehold is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Freehold you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your portulaca if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Freehold

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Freehold

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