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.

The earliest that you can plant monarda in Manteca can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Monarda

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

Since monarda 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 monarda in Manteca 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 monarda and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your monarda may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your monarda indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Manteca. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Manteca may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Manteca there is a last frost after February 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your monarda if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Manteca

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Manteca

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