When to Plant Onions in Orange, CA

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.

You can determine when it's possible to plant onions in Orange by reviewing 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.

Since onions do well in cold you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant onions
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant onions
Probably not a good time to plant onions

The earliest that you can plant onions in Orange 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 onions and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your onions may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your onions indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on January 31 in Orange. It might get as low as 30°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Orange is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Orange you get surprised by a frost after January 31 so be sure to be ready to protect your onions if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Orange

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low30°F
Highest Expected Low35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Orange

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