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.

A common way of determining when to plant black pepper is to refer to the USDA zone info for Molalla.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

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

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

Last Frost Date

In Molalla the average date of last frost happens on March 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Molalla may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Molalla you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your black pepper if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Molalla

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Molalla

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