I know, I know. After a long winter, you are anxious to get out into the garden and start planting. It’s been beautifully warm for several days, surely it’s time to start gardening. Right?
Wrong.
I know. I’m sad too. I hate to burst your bubble. But it’s important to pay attention to last average frost dates for your area.
Every year, about the 1st week of May, I have a dozen people asking me if they can start their garden. The answer: Probably not. Because no matter how nice the weather is on May 5th, I promise you that sometime before May 20th there will be a cold snap–or worse, a snow storm. It happens every year. Always.
So when can I start gardening?
There are two important facts every gardener needs to know: First and last frost dates and USDA Hardiness Zone. The first tells you when to plant and the second tells you what you can plant (for perennials.)
First, find out what the average last frost date for your area is. Do not plant any cold-sensitive plants, like tomatoes, peppers or melons, before that day. In fact, you probably should wait an extra 5-10 days after the average last frost day to plant cold-sensitive plants. You want to make absolutely sure those tender plants don’t meet an untimely death.
More ways to protect your plants
Here are some other ways to protect plants from the cold and extend your growing season. I’ve listed them from easiest and least expensive to more involved and/or more expensive methods. Follow the links for more details on these different methods to protect crops.
- Use old bed sheets or floating row covers (a special, light weight non-woven fabric.) Lay these over tender plants to prevent frost damage. At the end of the growing season, plants are bigger or more mature. That’s when you can use blankets or tarps to cover the plants.
- Cloche is French for “bell”, so think of a bell (or bowl) placed over plants to keep heat in and cold out. It can be as simple as a 1-gallon plastic jug with the bottom cut out. Or you can use any clear glass bowl turned over the plant. Shop thrift stores for glass punch or mixing bowls. Or look for discarded fish tanks on the boulevard during your town’s spring clean-up week.
- Wall-o-Water is one of the most popular cold-protection products on the market. Read about how well it worked for our tomatoes.
- A cold-frame is a wooden frame with a window on top that acts like a green house. It is easy to construct and if you use cast off materials found during clean up week, it will only cost a few dollars. (Read here how successful the cold frame was for us this year.)
- Create a mini green house with a hoop house, made with PVC pipe and clear plastic.
Read More:
Extend your growing season at the beginning and the end
You can use these same techniques at the end of the growing season. In September we usually have several nights of cold temperatures followed by another 2-3 weeks of glorious weather. It’d be a shame to lose those last 2-3 weeks of gardening just because of a couple cold nights.
With our short growing season here in the Midwest, we want to get the most
out of our gardening that we can. Protecting your garden now will get you into the garden earlier this spring. And if you protect them in the fall you will have fresh veggies long after all your neighbors’ gardens will have perished in the cold.
So protect your plants to make sure you are getting every last drop of garden you can out of the season.
Read More: Extending the Garden
