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 way of getting a good idea when to plant flowering tobacco is to refer to the USDA zone info for Oak Ridge.

Planting Calendar for Flowering Tobacco

Frost tolerance for flowering tobacco:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's a bad idea to plant flowering tobacco until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant flowering tobacco in Oak Ridge 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 flowering tobacco and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your flowering tobacco may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your flowering tobacco indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oak Ridge. You can expect an average low temperature of 0°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Ridge is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Oak Ridge last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your flowering tobacco in the event of a surprise late frost.

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.