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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's the best time to plant kale is to look at the USDA zone info for Lincoln Park.

Planting Calendar for Kale

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

Kale are moderately cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant kale in Lincoln Park 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 kale and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your kale may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your kale indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Lincoln Park. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Lincoln Park is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Lincoln Park last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your kale if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lincoln Park

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Lincoln Park

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lincoln Park.