When to Plant Pumpkins in Naperville, 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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant pumpkins is to refer to the USDA zone info for Naperville.


Planting Calendar for Pumpkins

Frost tolerance for pumpkins: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Pumpkins require warm weather which tells us that you really should wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

The earliest that you can plant pumpkins in Naperville 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 pumpkins and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your pumpkins may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your pumpkins indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Naperville. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Naperville may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Naperville you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your pumpkins if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Naperville

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 Naperville

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