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.

The USDA zone info for Ephrata can be used to determine when it's the best time to plant thyme.

Planting Calendar for Thyme

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

Thyme do well in cold which means that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant thyme in Ephrata 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 thyme and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your thyme may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your thyme indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Ephrata. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Ephrata is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Ephrata you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your thyme if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ephrata

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 Ephrata

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