When to Plant Garlic in Atherton, CA

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant garlic is to use the USDA zone info for Atherton.


Planting Calendar for Garlic

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

You can plant garlic a lot earlier in the year because they do well in 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 Atherton is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garlic and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garlic may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Atherton. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Atherton is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Atherton you get a frost after February 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Atherton

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low25°F
Highest Expected Low30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Atherton

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