When to Plant Mustard greens in Champaign, IL

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's possible to determine when it's a good idea to plant mustard greens by checking out the USDA zone info for Champaign.


Planting Calendar for Mustard greens

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

Since mustard greens are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant mustard greens in Champaign 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 mustard greens and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your mustard greens may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your mustard greens indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Champaign. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Champaign and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Champaign it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your mustard greens if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Champaign

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 Champaign

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