Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant romaine lettuce is to check out the USDA zone info for Columbia.

Planting Calendar for Romaine lettuce

Frost tolerance for romaine lettuce:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Romaine lettuce do ok in a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant romaine lettuce 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 romaine lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your romaine lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Columbia the average date of last frost happens on March 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Columbia is just 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 there is a last frost after March 15 be ready to protect your romaine lettuce in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Columbia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Columbia

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