One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 should be able to determine when it's possible to plant parsnip by using the USDA zone info for Columbia.

Planting Calendar for Parsnip

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

Parsnip are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant parsnip in Columbia 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 parsnip and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your parsnip may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your parsnip indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Columbia the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Columbia is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Columbia you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your parsnip if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Columbia

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 Columbia

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