One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 common way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant lovage is to examine the USDA zone info for Erie.

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 some cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant lovage in Erie 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 lovage and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your lovage may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your lovage indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Erie. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Erie and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Erie you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your lovage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Erie

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Erie

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