When to Plant Romaine lettuce in Freeport, 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.

One way of determining when it's a good idea to plant romaine lettuce is to use the USDA zone info for Freeport.


Planting Calendar for Romaine lettuce

Frost tolerance for romaine lettuce: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Romaine lettuce do well in a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant romaine lettuce in Freeport 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 romaine lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your romaine lettuce 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 Freeport. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Freeport is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Freeport you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your romaine lettuce in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Freeport

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Freeport

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