One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

One way of figuring out when it's possible to plant lemon balm is to refer to the USDA zone info for Mena.

Planting Calendar for Lemon balm

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

Since lemon balm are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lemon balm in Mena 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 lemon balm and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lemon balm may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your lemon balm indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Mena. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Mena is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Mena there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your lemon balm in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mena

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Mena

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