One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the 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 making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant black pepper is to look at the USDA zone info for Bellefonte.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant black pepper until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in Bellefonte 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your black pepper may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your black pepper indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Bellefonte the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Bellefonte is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Bellefonte last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your black pepper if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Bellefonte

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 Bellefonte

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