One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

By referring to the USDA zone info for Ponchatoula it's a good idea to estimate when it's a good idea to plant garlic.

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 quite a bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Ponchatoula 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 few weeks earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on March 15 in Ponchatoula. You can expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ponchatoula is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ponchatoula last frost occurs after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your garlic in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Ponchatoula

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Ponchatoula

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