One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

In Alpine you can determine when it's a good idea to plant romaine lettuce by referring to the USDA zone info.

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 are very cold tolerant which tells us that you can start planting them much earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant romaine lettuce in Alpine 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your romaine lettuce indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Alpine. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Alpine is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Alpine last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your romaine lettuce if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Alpine

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 Alpine

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