When to Plant Garden cress in Benton, IL

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.

One way of figuring out when to plant garden cress is to examine the USDA zone info for Benton.


Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Garden cress do not do well in cold weather which means that it's necessary to wait until it warms up after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

The earliest that you can plant garden cress in Benton is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garden cress and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garden cress may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your garden cress indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Benton. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Benton is just an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Benton you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your garden cress in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Benton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-5°F
Highest Expected Low0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Benton

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