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.

A common way of figuring out when it's a good idea to plant spearmint is to check out the USDA zone info for Roanoke.

Planting Calendar for Spearmint

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

Since spearmint are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Roanoke 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your spearmint may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your spearmint indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Roanoke. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Roanoke and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Roanoke it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your spearmint in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Roanoke

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

Plants to Grow in Roanoke

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