One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 making a decision about when it's possible to plant flowering kale is to examine the USDA zone info for Carbondale.

Planting Calendar for Flowering Kale

Frost tolerance for flowering kale:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since flowering kale do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant flowering kale in Carbondale 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 flowering kale and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your flowering kale may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your flowering kale indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Carbondale is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Carbondale you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your flowering kale if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carbondale

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°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 -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Carbondale

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