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 best time to plant sweet potatos in East Chicago can be figured out by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Sweet Potatos

Frost tolerance for sweet potatos:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost has passed.

You really shouldn't plant sweet potatos until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant sweet potatos in East Chicago is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant sweet potatos and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sweet potatos may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your sweet potatos indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in East Chicago. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for East Chicago is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in East Chicago there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your sweet potatos in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for East Chicago

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 East Chicago

You may be interested in your other planting guides for East Chicago.