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.

You can figure out when you can plant garden cress in Portland by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's probably a bad idea to plant garden cress until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Portland 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 garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden cress may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Portland and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Portland you get surprised by a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your garden cress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Portland

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 Portland

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