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.

The best time to plant onions in Salem can be figured out by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Onions

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

Since onions are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant onions in Salem 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your onions indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Salem. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Salem is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Salem you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your onions in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Salem

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