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.

The USDA zone info for Grand Rapids can be looked at to determine when you can 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 can survive in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Grand Rapids is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garlic and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your garlic indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Grand Rapids the average date of last frost happens on May 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -35°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is not always accurate because it is based on the USDA zone info for Grand Rapids and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Grand Rapids last frost occurs after May 15 be ready to protect your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Grand Rapids

Here is the info for USDA Zone 3b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	September 15
Lowest Expected Low	-35°F
Highest Expected Low	-30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -30°F.

Plants to Grow in Grand Rapids

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Grand Rapids.