One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant onions is to refer to the USDA zone info for Milan.

Planting Calendar for Onions

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

Onions do ok in a bit of cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant onions in Milan 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. Any later than that and your onions may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your onions indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Milan. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Milan is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Milan you get a frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your onions if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Milan

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 Milan

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