One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Piedmont can be estimated by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garlic

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

Garlic can survive in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Piedmont 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. If you wait any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Piedmont. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Piedmont may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Piedmont there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Piedmont

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 Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 Piedmont

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