One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

The USDA zone info for Effingham should be used to estimate when it's possible to plant garlic.

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 tells us that you can get them planted much earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Effingham 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 grow to maturity. If you are starting your garlic indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Effingham the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as -10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Effingham is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Effingham last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Effingham

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Effingham

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