One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

A way of determining when it's the best time to plant pearl onions is to use the USDA zone info for Kent.

Planting Calendar for Pearl onions

Frost tolerance for pearl onions:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since pearl onions do ok in moderate cold you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant pearl onions in Kent 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 pearl onions and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your pearl onions may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your pearl onions indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Kent. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Kent is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Kent it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your pearl onions in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Kent

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

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

Plants to Grow in Kent

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