When to Plant Bunching Onions in Willow Springs, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of figuring out when to plant bunching onions is to check out the USDA zone info for Willow Springs.


Planting Calendar for Bunching Onions

Frost tolerance for bunching onions: Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant: Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

You can plant bunching onions just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather.

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

The earliest that you can plant bunching onions in Willow Springs is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant bunching onions and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your bunching onions may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your bunching onions indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Willow Springs the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Willow Springs is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Willow Springs last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your bunching onions in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Willow Springs

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 Willow Springs

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Willow Springs.