When to Plant Onions in Carrboro, NC

One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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 determine when it's the best time to plant onions in Carrboro by referring to the USDA zone info.


Planting Calendar for Onions

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

Onions are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can start planting them much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

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

The earliest that you can plant onions in Carrboro 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 onions and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your onions may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your onions indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Carrboro and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Carrboro there is a last frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your onions in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Carrboro

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low5°F
Highest Expected Low10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Carrboro

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