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 to plant bittercress is to use the USDA zone info for Ripon.

Planting Calendar for Bittercress

Frost tolerance for bittercress:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Bittercress do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant bittercress in Ripon is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant bittercress and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your bittercress may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your bittercress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last 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.

Since the USDA zone info for Ripon is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ripon you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your bittercress in the event of a surprise late frost.

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.