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.

A common way of figuring out when you can plant stevia is to refer to the USDA zone info for Oak Forest.

Planting Calendar for Stevia

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

It's not a good idea to plant stevia until after the last frost has passed because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant stevia 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 stevia and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your stevia may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your stevia 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 Oak Forest. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Oak Forest and it can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Oak Forest there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your stevia in the event of one of those late frosts.

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.