The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. 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 stevia is to examine the USDA zone info for Carmel.

Planting Calendar for Stevia

Frost tolerance for stevia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant stevia until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant stevia in Carmel is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant stevia and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your stevia may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your stevia indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Carmel. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Carmel is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Carmel it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your stevia if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carmel

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 Carmel

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