When to Plant Carrots in Reading, PA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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.

In Reading you can figure out when to plant carrots by looking at the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Carrots

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

Carrots do well in moderate cold which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant carrots
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant carrots
Probably not a good time to plant carrots

The earliest that you can plant carrots in Reading 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 carrots and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your carrots may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your carrots indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Reading the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Reading is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Reading it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your carrots if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Reading

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 Low0°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 Reading

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