One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

By using the USDA zone info for Lancaster you should be able to figure out when to plant romaine lettuce.

Planting Calendar for Romaine lettuce

Frost tolerance for romaine lettuce:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant romaine lettuce much earlier in the year because they are very cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant romaine lettuce in Lancaster 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 romaine lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your romaine lettuce indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Lancaster. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lancaster is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Lancaster last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your romaine lettuce if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lancaster

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 Lancaster

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