When to Plant Spinach in Princeton, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 common way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant spinach is to look at the USDA zone info for Princeton.


Planting Calendar for Spinach

Frost tolerance for spinach: Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant: Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Spinach do ok in some cold which means that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

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

Last Frost Date

In Princeton the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Princeton is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Princeton it frosts late in the year after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your spinach in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Princeton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

Plants to Grow in Princeton

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