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 Salem 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 means that you can get them planted much earlier than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Salem 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. If you wait any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is March 15 in Salem. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Salem is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Salem you get a frost after March 15 be ready to cover your garlic in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Salem

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Salem

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