When to Plant Snap beans in Mchenry, 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.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's the best time to plant snap beans by looking at the USDA zone info for Mchenry.


Planting Calendar for Snap beans

Frost tolerance for snap beans: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After all chance of frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant snap beans until after the last frost because they do not do well in cold weather.

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

The earliest that you can plant snap beans in Mchenry 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 snap beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your snap beans may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your snap beans 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 is on April 15 in Mchenry. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Mchenry is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Mchenry it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your snap beans in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Mchenry

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 Mchenry

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