When to Plant Garlic in Bourbonnais, IL

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to determine when you can plant garlic by reviewing the USDA zone info for Bourbonnais.


Planting Calendar for Garlic

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

Garlic are very cold tolerant which means that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other plants that might not handle the 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 Bourbonnais 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. Starting your garlic indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Bourbonnais. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Bourbonnais may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Bourbonnais last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bourbonnais

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-15°F
Highest Expected Low-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Bourbonnais

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