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.

A way of making a decision about when you can plant lovage is to look at the USDA zone info for San Rafael.

Planting Calendar for Lovage

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

Lovage tend to make it in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant lovage in San Rafael 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 lovage and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your lovage may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lovage indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in San Rafael. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 30°F.

Since the USDA zone info for San Rafael is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in San Rafael it frosts late in the year after January 31 so make sure that you are ready to cover your lovage in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for San Rafael

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	30°F
Highest Expected Low	35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in San Rafael

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Rafael.