When to Plant Romaine lettuce in Columbus, NE

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

You can figure out when you can plant romaine lettuce in Columbus by referring to 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 do ok in quite a bit of cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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 Columbus 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 romaine lettuce and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your romaine lettuce may not have a chance to really do well. 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 the last frost is on April 15 in Columbus. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Columbus and it is different every year. Since half of the time in Columbus it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your romaine lettuce in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Columbus

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 Columbus

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