When to Plant Welsh onion in West Chicago, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 figuring out when to plant welsh onion is to refer to the USDA zone info for West Chicago.

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Planting Calendar for Welsh onion

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

You can plant welsh onion slightly earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

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

The earliest that you can plant welsh onion in West Chicago 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 welsh onion and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your welsh onion may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your welsh onion indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in West Chicago. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for West Chicago is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in West Chicago there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your welsh onion in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for West Chicago

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 West Chicago

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Chicago.