One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

One way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant sweet corn is to use the USDA zone info for Raleigh.

Planting Calendar for Sweet corn

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

Since sweet corn do ok in moderate cold you can plant them just a tiny bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet corn in Raleigh is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant sweet corn and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sweet corn may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your sweet corn indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Raleigh. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Raleigh is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Raleigh you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sweet corn in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Raleigh

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 Raleigh

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