When to Plant Millet in Fairfield, IL

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.

By using the USDA zone info for Fairfield it's a good idea to estimate when it's the best time to plant millet.


Planting Calendar for Millet

Frost tolerance for millet: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant millet until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

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

The earliest that you can plant millet in Fairfield 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 millet and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your millet may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your millet indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Fairfield. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Fairfield is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Fairfield last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your millet in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Fairfield

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Fairfield

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