One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 determining when it's possible to plant watercress is to check out the USDA zone info for Brownwood.

Planting Calendar for Watercress

Frost tolerance for watercress:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since watercress do ok in moderate cold you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant watercress in Brownwood is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant watercress and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your watercress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your watercress indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Brownwood the average date of last frost happens on March 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Brownwood is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Brownwood last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to protect your watercress in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Brownwood

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 Brownwood

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