When to Plant Carrots in Shelbyville, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 Shelbyville should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's the best time to plant carrots.


Planting Calendar for Carrots

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

You can plant carrots a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather.

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

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Shelbyville. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Shelbyville is not always accurate the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Shelbyville you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your carrots if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Shelbyville

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 Shelbyville

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