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.

In Salem you can figure out when it's possible to plant sweet corn by referring to the USDA zone info.

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.

Sweet corn can survive in mild cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet corn in Salem 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. If you are starting your sweet corn indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Salem. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Salem you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sweet corn if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

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 Salem

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