When to Plant Lettuce in De Soto, MO

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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant lettuce is to refer to the USDA zone info for De Soto.


Planting Calendar for Lettuce

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

You can plant lettuce just a bit earlier in the year because they are moderately cold tolerant.

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

The earliest that you can plant lettuce in De Soto 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 lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your lettuce may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your lettuce indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in De Soto. You should expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for De Soto and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in De Soto you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your lettuce if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for De Soto

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 De Soto

You may be interested in your other planting guides for De Soto.