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.

The USDA zone info for Raritan should be used to determine when it's possible to plant eggplants.

Planting Calendar for Eggplants

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant eggplants until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Raritan. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Raritan is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Raritan there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your eggplants if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Raritan

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

Plants to Grow in Raritan

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