The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of estimating when you can plant snap beans is to examine the USDA zone info for New York.

Planting Calendar for Snap beans

Frost tolerance for snap beans:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant snap beans until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant snap beans in New York 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 snap beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your snap beans may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your snap beans indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in New York. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for New York is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in New York last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your snap beans if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for New York

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 New York

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New York.