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

In Mentor you can figure out when it's possible to plant spearmint by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Spearmint

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

Spearmint are very cold tolerant which tells us that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Mentor 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 spearmint and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your spearmint may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your spearmint indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Mentor is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Mentor last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your spearmint in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mentor

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Mentor

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