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 common way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant gherkins is to consult the USDA zone info for Gainesville.

Planting Calendar for Gherkins

Frost tolerance for gherkins:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

Since gherkins do not do well in cold weather it's necessary to wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant gherkins in Gainesville 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 gherkins and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your gherkins may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your gherkins indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Gainesville. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gainesville is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Gainesville you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your gherkins in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Gainesville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Gainesville

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