When to Plant Romaine lettuce in Mattoon, IL

Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

By referring to the USDA zone info for Mattoon it's a good idea to estimate when you can plant romaine lettuce.


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 ok in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them much 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 Mattoon 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 few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Mattoon. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Mattoon is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Mattoon it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your romaine lettuce in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mattoon

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 Mattoon

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