Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for Laurel can be looked at to figure out when it's possible to plant stocks.

Planting Calendar for Stocks

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

Stocks do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Laurel. You should expect an average low temperature of -25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Laurel is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Laurel last frost occurs after May 15 so always be ready to protect your stocks in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Laurel

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-25°F
Highest Expected Low	-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Laurel

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