One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

You should be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant chard by referring to the USDA zone info for Bellaire.

Planting Calendar for Chard

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

Chard do well in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them just a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant chard in Bellaire 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 chard and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your chard may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your chard indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Bellaire the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Bellaire is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Bellaire there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your chard in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bellaire

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Bellaire

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