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.

A common way of getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant onions is to check out the USDA zone info for Elgin.

Planting Calendar for Onions

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

Onions are very cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant onions in Elgin 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 onions and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your onions may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your onions indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Elgin the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Elgin is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Elgin there is a last frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your onions if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Elgin

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 Elgin

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