Gardening is a lot about hope, timing, and a little about gambling. We bring home a plant from the store and hope that we have the conditions it will need to thrive. We plant new trees and shrubs in the fall and early spring so that they have plenty of time to grow strong roots before the summer heat sets in. We sow seeds and gamble that rain will arrive in time to help them germinate. Some of what it takes to be a successful gardener only comes with time and experience- repeated annual trials to see what works and what doesn’t. But, there are also some great tools that can help us insure a higher chance of gardening success.
I like to try to time a lot of my planting around predictions for first and last frost dates each year. If you have ever read the back of a seed packet you may remember something about planting a number of weeks before or after the first or last frost.
Botanical Interests
Knowing the predictions for those two dates can be very helpful when planning your garden. There is a really neat interactive map available online from NCSU. You can use this map to learn when to expect freezing weather each winter and also when it will be gone in the spring.
This year, our first predicted freeze date will be November 5th. When we look at probabilities for cold weather we can expect temperatures to start to drop around the middle of October.
Why is this important? Well, for several reasons. When I look at the pack of peas that I would like to grow and hopefully harvest and enjoy eating this winter, the recommendation is to plant the seeds 6-8 weeks before my first frost date. Counting backwards 8 weeks from November 5th, I now know that I should plant my peas around September 10th.
Since I’m not much of a gambler and I want to ensure that I have some peas to harvest, I will even stagger my planting a week or two before that as well as a week or two after for an extended harvest.
Knowing that the potential for plant damaging weather increases the later it gets in October I like to set a reminder to take cuttings of plants in my garden that I want to root and carry over to the following spring- this year I have a pink and purple coleus that's on the top of my list!
I also know that this year I want to plant some narcissus bulbs and the best time to do so is right around that first frost date until the end of November.
Having these dates on my calendar really helps with a lot of my garden planning and planting, and I think knowing about this great resource will help you too!
