When to Plant Garlic in Olney, IL

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of getting a good idea when it's possible to plant garlic is to examine the USDA zone info for Olney.

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Planting Calendar for Garlic

Frost tolerance for garlic: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Garlic do ok in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Olney 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 garlic and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garlic may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Olney the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Olney is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Olney last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to cover your garlic in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Olney

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 Olney

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