Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. 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 possible to plant garlic by referring to the USDA zone info for New Orleans.

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 plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in New Orleans is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garlic and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your garlic may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in New Orleans. You should expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for New Orleans may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in New Orleans you get surprised by a frost after February 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your garlic if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for New Orleans

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in New Orleans

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Orleans.