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.

The USDA zone info for Punxsutawney should be looked at to determine when to plant black pepper.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

Frost tolerance for black pepper:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

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

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in Punxsutawney 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 fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your black pepper indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Punxsutawney. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Punxsutawney is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Punxsutawney it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your black pepper in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Punxsutawney

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 Punxsutawney

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