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.

In Oak Forest you can figure out when it's the best time to plant garlic by reviewing 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.

Garlic do well in cold which tells us that you can start planting them much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Oak Forest 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 really do well. Starting your garlic indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Oak Forest. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oak Forest is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Oak Forest it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your garlic in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oak Forest

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 Oak Forest

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oak Forest.