Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Ripon should be reffered to in order to determine when you can plant banana.

Planting Calendar for Banana

Frost tolerance for banana:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Since banana are not cold tolerant it is important to wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant banana in Ripon 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 banana and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your banana may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your banana indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Ripon. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Ripon and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ripon last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your banana if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ripon

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 Ripon

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