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 way of determining when it's a good idea to plant chicory is to look at the USDA zone info for San Marcos.

Planting Calendar for Chicory

Frost tolerance for chicory:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Chicory are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chicory in San Marcos 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 chicory and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your chicory may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chicory indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in San Marcos. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for San Marcos is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in San Marcos there is a last frost after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your chicory in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Marcos

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 San Marcos

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Marcos.