Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of making a decision about when to plant spearmint is to refer to the USDA zone info for Federal Way.

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 plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant spearmint in Federal Way 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 fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your spearmint indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Federal Way. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Federal Way is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Federal Way last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to cover your spearmint if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Federal Way

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Federal Way

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Federal Way.