One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The first opportunity to plant flax in Salem can be figured out by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Flax

Frost tolerance for flax:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Flax tend to make it in some cold which means that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The last month that you can plant flax and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your flax may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your flax indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

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.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Salem it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your flax 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 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 Salem

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