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.

You should be able to figure out when it's the best time to plant beets by looking at the USDA zone info for Oak Ridge.

Planting Calendar for Beets

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

Beets do well in a little bit of cold which means that you can plant them a little earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant beets in Oak Ridge 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 beets and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your beets may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your beets indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Oak Ridge the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Ridge is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Oak Ridge you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your beets if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Ridge

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Oak Ridge

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oak Ridge.