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 a good idea to plant lemon balm is to check out the USDA zone info for Mount Washington.

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.

You can plant lemon balm just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant lemon balm in Mount Washington 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lemon balm may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your lemon balm indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Mount Washington. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Mount Washington is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Mount Washington you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your lemon balm in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mount Washington

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Mount Washington

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mount Washington.