When to Plant Sweet Potatos in Blue Island, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are estimating your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of estimating when you can plant sweet potatos is to examine the USDA zone info for Blue Island.

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Planting Calendar for Sweet Potatos

Frost tolerance for sweet potatos: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

You should not plant sweet potatos until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sweet potatos
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sweet potatos
Probably not a good time to plant sweet potatos

The earliest that you can plant sweet potatos in Blue Island is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant sweet potatos and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sweet potatos may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your sweet potatos indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Blue Island. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Blue Island is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Blue Island you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your sweet potatos if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Blue Island

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Blue Island

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Blue Island.