When to Plant Garlic in Lake Elmo, MN

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

It's possible to figure out when to plant garlic by using the USDA zone info for Lake Elmo.


Planting Calendar for Garlic

Frost tolerance for garlic: Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant: Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Garlic are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can get them planted much earlier than more sensitive plants.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant garlic
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant garlic
Probably not a good time to plant garlic

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Lake Elmo 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. 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 little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on May 15 in Lake Elmo. It might get as low as -25°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lake Elmo and it changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Lake Elmo it frosts late in the year after May 15 be ready to protect your garlic if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Lake Elmo

Here is the info for USDA Zone 4b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)May 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)September 15
Lowest Expected Low-25°F
Highest Expected Low-20°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 -20°F.

Plants to Grow in Lake Elmo

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Lake Elmo.