Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. 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 the best time to plant lettuce is to look at the USDA zone info for Rome.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Rome 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lettuce may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Rome. You should expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Rome is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Rome last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your lettuce in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rome

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Rome

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