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.

In Slidell you can determine when it's the best time to plant spearmint by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Spearmint

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

Spearmint tend to make it in quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Slidell is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant spearmint and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your spearmint may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your spearmint indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Slidell the average date of last frost happens on February 15. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Slidell is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Slidell it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to cover your spearmint if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Slidell

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°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 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Slidell

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