Waiting for the best weather to plant

Planting the garden or flowers requires a bit of pre-planing if we are to be successful at all and Waiting for the best weather to plant can be the hardest part.The planning is just part of the fun but how well we plan can make the difference between a great garden or total failure. The big question is what is the best time to plant the garden or flowers.

We live in a zone 4 growing zone and that means we can get a frost up to the end of may. We have grown here for many years and our experience tells us that the weather may be nice but it can change very quickly. We have had snow on the fourth of July.

The past few days the weather has been very pleasant and today the temperatures went past 80 degrees. This was a record but by only 1 degree. The point is this warm weather can fool people into thinking it is later in the season than it really is. All day today I kept thinking I was far behind and then I would remember that its the middle of April.

We needed some hardware and stopped by Lowe’s to check out the plants and we were surprised to see there were tomato and pepper plants ready. They also had petunias and geraniums out. I had to wonder what would happen if a freeze hit. But they use vendors who supply the plants and that also explains why they are usually in poor shape.

The big box stores and grocery stores could care less about planting dates and zones. We were looking at a very nice plant and it claimed to be a perennial but when we looked at the cold heartiness we found that the plant was suited for temperatures of 10 degrees to zero Fahrenheit. Not at all suited for this area where the temps can go to 30 below.

We take pride in the fact that our customers know that planting early is foolish and can be a waste of money. So we take advantage of this nice weather to take care of all the early garden chores like cleaning out the perennial beds and so forth. Unless they have changed the calendar there will be plenty of time for the garden.