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.

A common way of determining when it's possible to plant pearl onions is to look at the USDA zone info for Oil City.

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.

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

The earliest that you can plant pearl onions in Oil City 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. Any later than that and your pearl onions may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your pearl onions indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Oil City the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Oil City is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Oil City it frosts late in the year after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your pearl onions if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oil City

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 Oil City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oil City.