One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 should be able to figure out when it's possible to plant broccoli by checking out the USDA zone info for Charlottesville.

Planting Calendar for Broccoli

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

Broccoli do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Charlottesville. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Charlottesville is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Charlottesville it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your broccoli in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Charlottesville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Charlottesville

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