When to Plant Romaine lettuce in Rochester, MN

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The first chance to plant romaine lettuce in Rochester can be figured out by looking at 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.

Since romaine lettuce do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle 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 Rochester 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 really do well. Starting your romaine lettuce indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on May 15 in Rochester. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -25°F.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Rochester is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Rochester last frost occurs after May 15 be ready to protect your romaine lettuce in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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