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.

You will be able to determine when to plant nigella by checking out the USDA zone info for El Paso.

Planting Calendar for Nigella

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

Nigella can survive in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant nigella in El Paso 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 nigella and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your nigella may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your nigella indoors.

Last Frost Date

In El Paso the average date of last frost happens on March 15. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for El Paso 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 El Paso it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to protect your nigella in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for El Paso

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 El Paso

You may be interested in your other planting guides for El Paso.