gardening and temperatures

[franksolich]

I just had an interesting conversation with someone whose income taxes I do, who thinks I'm nuts.  I on the other hand think I'm utterly sane.

Every March 15, if I'm planting something outdoors, I plant it then.

I'm talking seeds, not shoots or sprouts.

Nebraska is "variable," to say the least, in weather, and of course we've had snow as late as April 30.  Not often--maybe two or three times in my life, but it has happened.

This person insisted I'm wrong, wrong, wrong, and that I should wait until 100% of the danger of frost has passed.

I say bull manure.

This was what confused me last year, when the cross-bearing maternal ancestress, the mother of the Bostonian Drunkard, complained on Skins's island last June that she couldn't get her planting in.....she lives in New Hampshire.

I have always planted (seeds only, remember) on March 15, even if there was snow on the ground.  In Nebraska, March 15 is far along enough in the year that while there might still be a few nights where the temperatures drop below 32, there's not likely to be many of them, and when they drop, they drop minorly, to 31 or 30 or 29 or 28 degrees.

So I think it's okay to do this; the results speak volumes.

I suspect that a frost merely slightly retards seeds from opening and sprouting, but they make up for that lost time in no time at all.

She says I'm doing it wrong.

I say the results speak for themselves.

I'm talking about planting on ordinary ground here, not the William Rivers Pitt, that 740-cubic ton mountain of antique swine manure, which of course began getting green, and is now lavishly green and congested with all sorts of plants, in mid-February.  Swine manure always has a higher temperature than plain ordinary soil, which is why when the snow melts, it melts first on the William Rivers Pitt.

I say it's okay to plant seeds even if the danger of frost has not passed.

Any argument?

[NHSparky]

Plant is one thing, but if the seed has germinated and frost catches it, then it's done.

Then again, up here, we've still got serious snow on the ground.  I just do the planting inside and transplant once I see that we haven't had serious hard freezes and no predictions of such for at least 7-10 days out.

[bijou]

I have sown some seeds outside so far: peas, garbanzo, radish and lettuce. Some seeds don't suffer in the frost and are slow enough to germinate that the seedlings miss the frost.  Most of the seeds I have recommend outdoor sowing in April/May but I tend to do it a bit earlier because I'm an impatient sort and my garden is south facing.