When to Plant Spinach in Salem, IL

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.

You should be able to estimate when it's possible to plant spinach by referring to the USDA zone info for Salem.


Planting Calendar for Spinach

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

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

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

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Salem. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Salem is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Salem it frosts late in the year after April 15 so always be ready to cover your spinach in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Salem

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