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 common way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant garden cress is to use the USDA zone info for Athens.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

It's probably not a good idea to plant garden cress until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Athens 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 garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Athens the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Athens is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Athens it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your garden cress in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Athens

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 Athens

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