When to Plant Garlic in Elburn, IL

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.

The USDA zone info for Elburn should be used to figure out when it's the best time 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 one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them much earlier than more sensitive plants.

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 Elburn 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else 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 Elburn. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Elburn is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Elburn 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 Elburn

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 Elburn

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