When to Plant Lettuce in Princeton, IL

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.

It's a good idea to estimate when to plant lettuce by looking at the USDA zone info for Princeton.


Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

Lettuce do ok in moderate cold which means that you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in Princeton 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your lettuce may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Princeton. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Princeton is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Princeton it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your lettuce in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Princeton

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 Princeton

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