The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant stevia is to examine the USDA zone info for Alpena.

Planting Calendar for Stevia

Frost tolerance for stevia:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost.

It's a bad idea to plant stevia until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant stevia in Alpena 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 fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your stevia indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Alpena is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Alpena you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your stevia in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Alpena

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 Alpena

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