One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 should be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant rosemary by looking at the USDA zone info for Ithaca.

Planting Calendar for Rosemary

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

Rosemary do ok in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ithaca. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Ithaca and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Ithaca last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your rosemary if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ithaca

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Ithaca

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