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.

In Park Forest you can determine when it's the best time to plant chicory by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Chicory

Frost tolerance for chicory:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

You can plant chicory a little earlier in the year because they do well in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant chicory in Park Forest is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant chicory and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your chicory may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your chicory indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Park Forest the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Park Forest is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Park Forest it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to cover your chicory in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Park 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 Park Forest

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