When to Plant Sweet Potato Vine in Harvard, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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.

A way of getting a good idea when you can plant sweet potato vine is to refer to the USDA zone info for Harvard.


Planting Calendar for Sweet Potato Vine

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant sweet potato vine until after the last frost because they require warm weather.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sweet potato vine
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sweet potato vine
Probably not a good time to plant sweet potato vine

The earliest that you can plant sweet potato vine in Harvard 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 sweet potato vine and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your sweet potato vine may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your sweet potato vine indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Harvard the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Harvard may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Harvard you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your sweet potato vine in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Harvard

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 Harvard

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