By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--October 14, 2024

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For gardeners and orchardists, frost dates have long been the anchors for the calendar year. Those dates define the local primary growing season. Between the local frost dates in the warmer part of the year all of the tender garden vegetable and flower crops can survive. In the cold months between the frost dates the tender vegetable and flower crops can only survive if carefully protected.

In this link, Finding Your Frost Free Dates, there are excellent maps of average last spring and first fall frosts for North America. The maps are very useful because they give ranges of dates when frosts can be expected. I can’t remember a time when last or first frosts occurred on the same days of their months two years in a row.

The keys are location and weather. We look at average frost dates because that gives us an idea of when to watch. The only frost date that really matters is the one where you are.

Some plants thrive in cooler weather. Spinach, onions, leeks, carrots, and peas do better when it’s not the hottest part of the year. Kale thrives best in cool weather even in the Northland, and will........

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