When to Plant Romaine lettuce in Northfield, MN

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 first opportunity to plant romaine lettuce in Northfield can be estimated by using the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Romaine lettuce

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

Romaine lettuce are very cold tolerant which tells us that you can start planting them much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant romaine lettuce in Northfield 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 romaine lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your romaine lettuce indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on May 15 in Northfield. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Northfield is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Northfield it frosts late in the year after May 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your romaine lettuce if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Northfield

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)September 15
Lowest Expected Low-25°F
Highest Expected Low-20°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Northfield

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