One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You should be able to determine when it's the best time to plant onions by looking at the USDA zone info for Oakland.

Planting Calendar for Onions

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

You can plant onions a lot earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant onions in Oakland 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 onions and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your onions may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your onions indoors is a great way to get them started a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Oakland. It might get as low as -5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oakland is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Oakland there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your onions in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oakland

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°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 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Oakland

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