One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 figuring out when it's possible to plant asparagus is to look at the USDA zone info for Newport.

Planting Calendar for Asparagus

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

You can plant asparagus quite a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Newport. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Newport may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Newport it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your asparagus in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Newport

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 Newport

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