When to Plant Carrots in Buffalo, NY

One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 Buffalo should be read to estimate when to plant carrots.


Planting Calendar for Carrots

Frost tolerance for carrots: Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant: Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

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

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant carrots
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant carrots
Probably not a good time to plant carrots

The earliest that you can plant carrots in Buffalo is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant carrots and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your carrots may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your carrots indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Buffalo. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Buffalo is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Buffalo you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your carrots in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Buffalo

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 Buffalo

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