One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the 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 figuring out when to plant purple rock cress is to look at the USDA zone info for Rusk.

Planting Calendar for Purple Rock Cress

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

Since purple rock cress are very cold tolerant you can plant them earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant purple rock cress in Rusk 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 purple rock cress and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your purple rock cress may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your purple rock cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Rusk. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Rusk is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Rusk last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to cover your purple rock cress if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rusk

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Rusk

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