The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. 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 figure out when it's the best time to plant black pepper by using the USDA zone info for New Castle.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

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

It's a bad idea to plant black pepper until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in New Castle 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. If you wait any later than that and your black pepper may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your black pepper indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in New Castle. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for New Castle may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in New Castle it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your black pepper in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for New Castle

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 New Castle

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Castle.