When to Plant Lemon balm in Manchester, IA

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.

By using the USDA zone info for Manchester you will be able to figure out when it's possible to plant lemon balm.


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.

Lemon balm do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them slightly earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant lemon balm
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant lemon balm
Probably not a good time to plant lemon balm

The earliest that you can plant lemon balm in Manchester 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. If you wait any later than that and your lemon balm may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lemon balm indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Manchester. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Manchester is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Manchester you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your lemon balm in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Manchester

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Manchester

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