When to Plant Garlic in Harwood Heights, IL

One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's the best time to plant garlic by looking at the USDA zone info for Harwood Heights.


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 much earlier in the year 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 Harwood Heights 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 few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Just be sure to remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Harwood Heights and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Harwood Heights last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your garlic if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Harwood Heights

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 Harwood Heights

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Harwood Heights.