When to Plant Mustard in Oak Brook, 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 common way of determining when it's the best time to plant mustard is to examine the USDA zone info for Oak Brook.


Planting Calendar for Mustard

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

You really shouldn't plant mustard until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

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

The earliest that you can plant mustard in Oak Brook 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 mustard and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your mustard may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your mustard indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oak Brook. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Brook is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Oak Brook it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your mustard if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Brook

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 Oak Brook

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oak Brook.