One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

The USDA zone info for Malibu can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's the best time to plant pearl onions.

Planting Calendar for Pearl onions

Frost tolerance for pearl onions:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Pearl onions do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than more sensitive plants.

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

Last Frost Date

In Malibu the average date of last frost happens on January 31. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 35°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Malibu is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Malibu it frosts late in the year after January 31 so make sure that you are ready to cover your pearl onions in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Malibu

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	35°F
Highest Expected Low	40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in Malibu

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