Rocket · Baltimore, Maryland, United States
When to plant rocket in Baltimore
Main outdoor window
15-25 Mar
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
12 April
In Baltimore, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
14-29 Apr
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Baltimore
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow for overwintering
16 Aug - 6 Sep
Counting back 59 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Sow direct
15-25 Mar
Four weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
14-29 Apr
Rocket through the year
Against the frost risk in Baltimore
Why these dates
Ready in a month. Sow every ten days spring and autumn; skip high summer, when it turns unpleasantly hot and bolts within weeks.
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Rocket are timed for direct sowing 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Baltimore.
The median frost-free season here is 206 days, against 30 to 45 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Baltimore
Other vegetables to time
Growing rocket in Baltimore
When should I plant rocket in Baltimore?
Aim for 15-25 Mar in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 24 Mar - 3 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will rocket be ready to harvest in Baltimore?
Expect to start picking around 14-29 Apr, based on 30 to 45 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will rocket tolerate?
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.