One of the first steps you take when you are estimating 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 can determine when to plant garlic in Zone 9a by checking out 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.

Since garlic are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant garlic in Zone 9a is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant garlic and expect a good harvest is probably October. If you wait any later than that and your garlic may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your garlic indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Zone 9a. It might get as low as 20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Zone 9a is an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Zone 9a you get a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your garlic if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Zone 9a

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°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 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Zone 9a

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Zone 9a.