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.

It's a good idea to determine when it's the best time to plant lettuce by using the USDA zone info for Federal Way.

Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

You can plant lettuce a little bit earlier in the year because they do well in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Federal Way 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your lettuce may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Federal Way. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Federal Way is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Federal Way you get a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your lettuce if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Federal Way

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 Federal Way

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Federal Way.