One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

You will be able to determine when it's possible to plant basil by using the USDA zone info for Winston-Salem.

Planting Calendar for Basil

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

Since basil do not do well in cold weather you must wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant basil in Winston-Salem 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 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. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your basil indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Winston-Salem. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Winston-Salem is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Winston-Salem it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to protect your basil in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Winston-Salem

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 Winston-Salem

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Winston-Salem.