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.

One way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant balsam is to check out the USDA zone info for Garden City.

Planting Calendar for Balsam

Frost tolerance for balsam:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's a bad idea to plant balsam until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant balsam in Garden City 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 balsam and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your balsam may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your balsam indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Garden City. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Garden City is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Garden City it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your balsam if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Garden City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Garden City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Garden City.