One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your 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.

A common way of determining when it's the best time to plant tagetes is to examine the USDA zone info for Carthage.

Planting Calendar for Tagetes

Frost tolerance for tagetes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After all chance of frost has passed.

Tagetes do not do well in cold weather which means that it's necessary to wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant tagetes in Carthage 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 tagetes and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your tagetes may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your tagetes indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Carthage. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Carthage is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Carthage last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your tagetes in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Carthage

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 Carthage

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