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.

The first opportunity to plant chives in Sumter can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chives

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

Since chives are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chives in Sumter 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 chives and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your chives may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chives indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Sumter may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Sumter it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your chives if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sumter

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 Sumter

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