When to Plant Lettuce in Wilmington, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

In Wilmington you can figure out when it's possible to plant lettuce by checking out the USDA zone info.

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Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce do well in moderate cold which means that you can start planting them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Wilmington 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lettuce may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Wilmington. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Wilmington and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Wilmington it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your lettuce in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Wilmington

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 Wilmington

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