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.

One way of determining when you can plant black pepper is to examine the USDA zone info for Mercer Island.

Planting Calendar for Black pepper

Frost tolerance for black pepper:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

Black pepper do not do well in cold weather which means that you need to wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant black pepper in Mercer Island is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

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

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Mercer Island is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Mercer Island you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your black pepper in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mercer Island

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 Mercer Island

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mercer Island.