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.

The USDA zone info for Bismarck can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's the best time to plant basil.

Planting Calendar for Basil

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

Basil require warm weather which means that you need to wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant basil in Bismarck 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. Any later than that and your basil may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your basil indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Bismarck. You should expect an average low temperature of -30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Bismarck is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Bismarck there is a last frost after May 15 be ready to protect your basil in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Bismarck

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 Bismarck

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