One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when to plant carrots is to look at the USDA zone info for Kankakee.

Planting Calendar for Carrots

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

Carrots do ok in some cold which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant carrots in Kankakee 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 carrots and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your carrots may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your carrots indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Kankakee. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Kankakee and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Kankakee there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your carrots if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Kankakee

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 Kankakee

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