When to Plant Millet in Oak Forest, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

One way of figuring out when you can plant millet is to examine the USDA zone info for Oak Forest.


Planting Calendar for Millet

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant millet until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

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

The earliest that you can plant millet in Oak Forest 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 millet and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your millet may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your millet indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oak Forest. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Forest is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Oak Forest you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your millet in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Forest

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 Forest

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