One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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 Carpentersville should be reffered to in order to figure out when to plant shallots.

Planting Calendar for Shallots

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

You can plant shallots a bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant shallots in Carpentersville 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 shallots and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your shallots may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your shallots indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Carpentersville. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Carpentersville is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Carpentersville you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your shallots in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Carpentersville

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 Carpentersville

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