One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant gherkins is to refer to the USDA zone info for Painesville.

Planting Calendar for Gherkins

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

Gherkins require warm weather which tells us that you must wait until it warms up after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Painesville. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Painesville is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Painesville there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your gherkins in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Painesville

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 Painesville

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