![]() In contrast, at the end of the season as fall approaches, many of our hot weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are large and robust and are pumping out lots of fruit for our dinner tables.īut, as your garden approaches your average first frost date, there’s a high likelihood that a night will arrive where the temperature falls to 32 F. If you make this mistake and plant too early you might come out to your garden one morning to find a bunch of dead seedlings that have been killed by cold weather. What most commonly happens in spring is that gardeners plant vegetables that aren’t frost tolerant too early and then their gardens get hit by a spring frost. Most Common Mistakes in the Spring & Fall You still need to be paying close attention to the weather forecast around these times, which we’ll talk more about later in this post. Your average first and last frost dates for your area are just a guide to help you narrow down when these frosts are most likely, but not guaranteed, to occur. (I lost all of my peppers plants that weekend. Keep in mind that the actual day of the last frost can vary widely from year to year, especially with changing climate conditions.Īlthough my average last frost is usually around Mother’s Day, we have had frosts as late as Memorial Day Weekend. The best way to do this is to go to the website and enter in your zip code.īoth sites will display information for your area including your average first and last frost dates. You can get an idea of the general times of year when you can expect frosts in your garden by looking up the average last frost date in spring and average first frost date in fall. Although it has happened! This is when we enter into the summer gardening season.Īt the end of the summer as fall approaches, the same temperature fluctuations start up again and eventually our first frost will arrive, usually around the beginning of October. That’s quite a spread!īy late May my climate has settled into pretty stable nighttime temperatures and we rarely get a frost after the third week of May. ![]() These are the times of the year when a frost is likely to occur.įor example, where I live in Wisconsin the April nighttime low temperatures can be anywhere from 20 degrees to 50 degrees F. If you plant a tomato seedling, which is not frost tolerant, too early in spring and then your garden gets hits by a frost one night, your plant will likely be killed or severely damaged.ĭuring spring and fall, depending on where you garden, and especially if you garden in a northern climate like mine in zone 5, the nighttime temperatures can fluctuate wildly. You need to be very familiar with which vegetables fall into each category so you can make sure you’re planting the right vegetable at the right time in the season for it to grow and thrive (and not die!). Well, there are two big categories of vegetable plants – the ones that can survive a frost in the garden ( frost tolerant vegetables) and the ones that will get killed by frost ( non-frost tolerant vegetables). This is why plants will often look wilted on the morning after a frost. Plants cells are filled with water, so as the temperature hovers around freezing the water turns to ice and bursts the cell walls. That’s when the temperature at night drops below 28 degrees F. There’s also what’s known as a hard or killing frost which is more severe. A freeze or frost is when the nighttime temperature is between 28-32 degrees F. When you know and understand the concept of frost tolerant vegetables you can save yourself from the very traumatic experience of going out to your garden to find a bed full of dead plants.įirst, let’s define frost so we’re all on the same page.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |