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

One way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant garlic is to look at the USDA zone info for Fort Dodge.

Planting Calendar for Garlic

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

Since garlic are very cold tolerant you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Fort Dodge 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 garlic and expect a good harvest is probably September. 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

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Fort Dodge. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Fort Dodge is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Fort Dodge you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Fort Dodge

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Fort Dodge

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Fort Dodge.