Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Alma you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant onions by looking at 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.

You can plant onions quite a bit earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant onions in Alma 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 fully mature. If you are starting your onions indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Alma the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Alma is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Alma last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your onions if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Alma

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 Alma

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