When to Plant Borage in Vandalia, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are estimating your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of making a decision about when to plant borage is to look at the USDA zone info for Vandalia.

Create beautiful hand-made plants at forever-plants.com

Planting Calendar for Borage

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

Borage do ok in some cold which means that you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant borage in Vandalia 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your borage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your borage indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Vandalia. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Vandalia is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Vandalia it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your borage in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Vandalia

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 Vandalia

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