One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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.

You can figure out when it's a good idea to plant garlic in Rockford 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.

Since garlic do well in cold you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Rockford 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 little bit earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Rockford. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is just an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Rockford and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Rockford last frost occurs after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your garlic if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rockford

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 Rockford

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