Know your Frost Dates

In a previous post, I mentioned taking full advantage of your growing season by knowing your latest spring frost and the first fall frost. After more research, I have realized that the link I provided to gather this information is not very complete. I have since found a better reference.

Go to this site to get more complete information of frost dates for your area. This site provides data for three different temperatures-- 36, 32, and 28 --and three different probability levels. I would avoid the 90% column, as most seedlings can't handle frost. Cold hardy plants can be put out in the 50% probability date, and everything else should wait until the 10% date. There is still a 10% probability of a frost, so you should always be prepared to protect your new plants should a cold snap hit.

The above site will also list your freeze free period, in days. It's important to understand this number because it defines your growing season. The length of your growing season determines what you have time to grow or how many harvests you can squeeze in. For my area, my freeze free period is 134 days, at 50% probability. What this means is it will be very difficult to grow plants that have long times to maturity, like cabbage and broccoli. Time to maturity information is provided on most seed packets, but you can also go here for days to maturity on most common vegetables.

In order for me to grow tomatoes and peppers, I need to start seeds indoors so that as soon as the danger of frost is (mostly) over, I already have seedlings ready to be planted.

For those of you planning to start seeds indoors, NOW IS THE TIME for most areas. This will be my weekend project; I can't put it off any longer. Now get planting!!

Spring is Here (Almost)

Here on the High Plains, our first sign of spring is this:

It is not so much the blooming Johnny Jump Ups, as those tend to bloom all year long, but rather because I was able to go outside in my shirtsleeves and lay on the grass to take that picture. That's not easy to do in winter.

But the other signs are the daffodils and tulips poking up out of the soil:

They are always eager to bust out of their dark confines and see some snow, which will invariably come before spring is really here.

These are the signs that get me thinking about starting seeds, and this year I intend on intensifying my indoor seed-starting efforts. Having such a short growing season means I need to have seedlings ready to go by mid-to-late May, the last frost for the area. That's only 10 weeks away!

If you want to figure out your average last frost date, the Victory Seed Company has a few web pages that can help you out. Check it for your area here. To maximize production and harvest in your garden, you want to make full use of your growing season, which is defined as the time between the last frost date in the spring to the first frost date in the fall.

If your growing season is quite long, you can sometimes squeeze in two harvests. Scallions, for instance, is one plant that I can stagger and have a continuous supply for months. They even survive outdoors throughout the winter, although they don't taste so great come spring.

This year I will focus on those plants we either eat a lot of or what tends to be very expensive in the stores:

• scallions
• lettuce greens
• spinach
• tomatoes
• bell peppers
  
• soy beans
• sugar snap peas
• herbs

I also want to try some odd plants that I've never grown before, like chickpeas, adzuki beans, and black-eyed peas.

The nice thing about gardening is that is it relatively inexpensive to start from seeds, thus making it economical to explore and try new things. Some seeds are even "free". My entire bell pepper crop last year was provided by seeds inside one store-bought bell pepper. Imagine that! You can actually plant those things that usually end up in the trash! In a future article I will discuss how I preserve seeds for later use, and what I do to kick-start them back to life.

Starting seeds indoors can be just a simple little operation in some neglected corner of the house, or it can be full-scale madness, with lights and heated benches and irrigation systems. I'll discuss some of the techniques I use in coming articles. So stick around; lots of cool stuff coming!