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.

It's a good idea to determine when to plant spearmint by looking at the USDA zone info for Gainesville.

Planting Calendar for Spearmint

Frost tolerance for spearmint:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Spearmint can survive in cold weather which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Gainesville 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 spearmint and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your spearmint may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your spearmint indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Gainesville. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gainesville is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Gainesville there is a last frost after April 15 so always be ready to cover your spearmint if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Gainesville

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 Gainesville

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