Herb · Lamiaceae
When to plant sweet marjoram
Sweeter and milder than oregano, and genuinely tender where oregano is tough - grown as an annual in any climate with frost.
Start seed indoors
8 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
60-80
From planting out to a first picking.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make sweet marjoram plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 8 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 60–80 days to maturity, counted from planting out.
Getting the timing right
Start indoors 8 weeks before the last frost and plant out afterwards. The seed is very fine and needs light to germinate, so surface-sow and do not cover.
Frost tolerance
Killed by the first frost. A perennial in frost-free climates, an annual everywhere else.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).