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.

A way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant bell peppers is to consult the USDA zone info for Ocean City.

Planting Calendar for Bell Peppers

Frost tolerance for bell peppers:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant bell peppers until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Ocean City. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ocean City may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ocean City last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your bell peppers if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ocean City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Ocean City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Ocean City.