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 Sparta should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant borage.

Planting Calendar for Borage

Frost tolerance for borage:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

You can plant borage a little bit earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant borage in Sparta 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your borage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your borage indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Sparta the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Sparta is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Sparta it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your borage in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sparta

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Sparta

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