Garlic planting calendar
When to plant garlic — pick your state
Garlic timing swings hard by climate — choose your state for sow, transplant, and harvest dates calibrated to its USDA zone and frost window.
Northeast
Southeast
Midwest
Southwest
West
Pacific
Not listed: Hawaii — the dominant climate zone there is outside garlic's practical range, so a generic calendar would mislead more than it helps.
Common questions
When should I plant garlic?
Garlic is the unusual one — plant cloves in autumn (4-6 weeks before the first hard fall frost) so they put down roots before winter, then break dormancy in spring and bulb up over the long days of early summer. Cold-winter zones grow hardneck varieties; mild-winter zones do better with softneck. Because the right window depends on your local frost dates, pick your US state above for a calendar with exact sow, transplant, and harvest dates.
Does the best time to plant garlic vary by state?
Yes — planting dates swing by several weeks across the US because each state sits in a different USDA zone with its own frost window. Every state page here gives garlic dates calibrated to that state's climate.
How are these garlic planting dates calculated?
Each state's dates come from that state's dominant USDA hardiness zone and NOAA average frost dates, then adjusted for garlic's cold tolerance and days to maturity.