Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out 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 you can plant lemon balm is to look at the USDA zone info for Hartford.

Planting Calendar for Lemon balm

Frost tolerance for lemon balm:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Lemon balm do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant lemon balm in Hartford is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant lemon balm and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your lemon balm may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lemon balm indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Hartford. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Hartford is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Hartford last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your lemon balm if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Hartford

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

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

Plants to Grow in Hartford

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