When to Plant Garden cress in Carbondale, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

The USDA zone info for Carbondale can be used to determine when you can plant garden cress.


Planting Calendar for Garden cress

Frost tolerance for garden cress: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After all chance of frost has passed.

Since garden cress do not do well in cold weather it is necessary to wait until after the last frost 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 Carbondale 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. If you wait any later than that and your garden cress may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garden cress indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Carbondale. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Carbondale is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Carbondale there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your garden cress in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carbondale

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 Carbondale

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