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 thyme is to consult the USDA zone info for Elon.

Planting Calendar for Thyme

Frost tolerance for thyme:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Thyme do well in cold weather which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant thyme in Elon 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 thyme and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your thyme may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your thyme indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Elon the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Elon and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Elon you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your thyme if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elon

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Elon

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