One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant basil is to examine the USDA zone info for Sidney.

Planting Calendar for Basil

Frost tolerance for basil:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

Since basil are not cold tolerant it's necessary to wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant basil in Sidney is May. However, you really should wait until June if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant basil and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your basil may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your basil indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on May 15 in Sidney. You should expect an average low temperature of -30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Sidney is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Sidney it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to protect your basil in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sidney

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-30°F
Highest Expected Low	-25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -25°F.

Plants to Grow in Sidney

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