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.

You can figure out when it's possible to plant carrots in Elgin by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Carrots

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

Carrots do well in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant carrots in Elgin 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 carrots and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your carrots may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your carrots indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Elgin. You can expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Elgin is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Elgin last frost occurs after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your carrots if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Elgin

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Elgin

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