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.

The USDA zone info for Rantoul can be reffered to in order to figure out when it's possible to plant borage.

Planting Calendar for Borage

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

Borage are moderately cold tolerant which tells us that you can plant them earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant borage in Rantoul 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 borage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your borage may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your borage indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Rantoul. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Rantoul is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Rantoul you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your borage if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rantoul

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 Rantoul

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