One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

In Napa you can figure out when it's the best time to plant garlic by referring to 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 tend to make it in cold weather which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Napa 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. If you wait any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your garlic indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Napa the average date of last frost happens on February 15. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Napa is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Napa last frost occurs 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 Napa

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 Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°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 Napa

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