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.

The USDA zone info for Rantoul should be reffered to in order to estimate when it's the best time to plant potatos.

Planting Calendar for Potatos

Frost tolerance for potatos:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Since potatos are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant potatos 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 potatos and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your potatos may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your potatos indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Rantoul. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rantoul may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Rantoul you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your potatos if you have a surprise 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.