One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

You can determine when it's a good idea to plant garlic in Madison by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Garlic

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

You can plant garlic a lot earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Madison 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. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Madison the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Madison may not be accurate from year to year and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Madison last frost occurs after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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