When to Plant Onions in Burlington, VT

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.

You will be able to determine when it's a good idea to plant onions by using the USDA zone info for Burlington.


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

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant onions
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant onions
Probably not a good time to plant onions

The earliest that you can plant onions in Burlington 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 fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your onions indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Burlington. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Burlington is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Burlington you get a frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your onions if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Burlington

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Burlington

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