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.

The USDA zone info for Salem should be reffered to in order to determine when you can plant watercress.

Planting Calendar for Watercress

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

Since watercress do ok in moderate cold you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

In Salem the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Salem is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Salem it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your watercress if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

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 Salem

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