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.

A way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant garden cress is to use the USDA zone info for California.

Planting Calendar for Garden cress

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

Since garden cress are not cold tolerant it is necessary to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in California 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 really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for California is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in California it frosts late in the year after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your garden cress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for California

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 California

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