When to Plant Lettuce in Orange City, IA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to estimate when it's possible to plant lettuce by checking out the USDA zone info for Orange City.


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 tells us that you can start planting them earlier than other frost tender plants.

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 Orange City 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. If you are starting your lettuce 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 Orange City. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Orange City is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Orange City last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your lettuce in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Orange City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Orange City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Orange City.