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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant amaranthus is to examine the USDA zone info for Lancaster.

Planting Calendar for Amaranthus

Frost tolerance for amaranthus:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's a bad idea to plant amaranthus until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant amaranthus in Lancaster 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 amaranthus and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your amaranthus may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your amaranthus indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Lancaster. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lancaster and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lancaster it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your amaranthus in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lancaster

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 Lancaster

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