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

You should be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant spearmint by looking at the USDA zone info for Bristol.

Planting Calendar for Spearmint

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

Spearmint tend to make it in quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them much earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Bristol 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 really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your spearmint indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Bristol. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Bristol is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Bristol you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your spearmint if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bristol

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 Bristol

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