One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Zone 8a you can determine when it's possible to plant borage by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Borage

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

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

The earliest that you can plant borage in Zone 8a 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your borage may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your borage indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Zone 8a. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Zone 8a is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Zone 8a you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so always be ready to protect your borage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 8a

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Zone 8a

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 8a.