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 Schenectady can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant runner beans.

Planting Calendar for Runner beans

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

You should not plant runner 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 runner beans in Schenectady 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 runner beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your runner beans may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your runner 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 Schenectady. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Schenectady may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Schenectady there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your runner beans if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Schenectady

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Schenectady

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