One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

The first opportunity to plant garden orache in Madison should be figured out by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garden Orache

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

Since garden orache do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garden orache in Madison 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 garden orache and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your garden orache may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your garden orache indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Madison. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Madison is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Madison you get a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your garden orache if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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