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.

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant chard is to refer to the USDA zone info for Ephrata.

Planting Calendar for Chard

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

Since chard are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chard in Ephrata 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 chard and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your chard may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your chard indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Ephrata the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Ephrata is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ephrata you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your chard if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ephrata

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

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

Plants to Grow in Ephrata

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