When to Plant Sweet corn in Salem, MA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can figure out when to plant sweet corn in Salem by using the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Sweet corn

Frost tolerance for sweet corn: Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant: Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Sweet corn are barely cold tolerant which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sweet corn
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sweet corn
Probably not a good time to plant sweet corn

The earliest that you can plant sweet corn in Salem 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 sweet corn and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sweet corn may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sweet corn indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Salem. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Salem is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Salem last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your sweet corn if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

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 Low0°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 Salem

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