One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 Ocean City you can determine when it's a good idea to plant garlic by looking at 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.

Since garlic 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 frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Ocean City 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. If you are starting your garlic indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Ocean City the average date of last frost happens on April 15. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Ocean City is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Ocean City there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ocean City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Ocean City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Ocean City.