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 making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant tagetes is to use the USDA zone info for Carthage.

Planting Calendar for Tagetes

Frost tolerance for tagetes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

It's a bad idea to plant tagetes until after all chance of frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

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 few weeks earlier by starting your tagetes indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Carthage. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Carthage is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Carthage you get a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your tagetes in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Carthage

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Carthage

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