One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

In Ontario you can determine when it's possible to plant garlic by using 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.

Garlic do well in cold which tells us that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Ontario 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. Any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your garlic indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Ontario the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Ontario is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Ontario it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your garlic if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Ontario

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 Ontario

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