When to Plant Cold and Warm Weather Vegetables - Frost helps and hurts plants!

Did you know that Frost can actually HELP a plant?

Most of the country has Frost in the early Spring and late Fall. This is when you are

starting and closing your garden. In the southern states that are warm enough to plant tender plants in November, you must worry about Frost in the Winter.

As you know there are plants that can tolerate cold temperatures and even need the Frost to taste better, and then there is another group of plants that cannot survive a Frost without protection. These plants love the heat, especially Peppers.

The entire country usually plants in the spring which means that the seedlings are

started in mid to late winter. As a rule of thumb, most vegetables need to be 6 to 8

weeks old at the time of planting except Peppers which should be 10-12 weeks old.

When to plant is ALWAYS determined by how many weeks before or after the last killing Frost, planting can occur.

Cold loving plants can be planted before the last Frost in the Spring.

Heat loving plants must be planted after the average last Frost. However, that does not mean that a Frost cannot occur after the average last Frost date for your area. When I was a market gardener, I lost almost 30 tomato plants because we had a killing Frost 20 days after the last average Frost.

Always listen to Frost Alerts and have your plan ready to implement. I often go to Thrift Shops and pick a box of sheets for pennies on the dollar. Also Amazon.com is a good source of Painter’s Clothes and even coverings with zippers that will fit a small tree or a plant with a tall cadge around it.

Cold Tolerant and Heat Loving Vegetables

Here is a Chart of the Cold Tolerant and Heat Loving Vegetables. They are arranged in loose categories and are arranged the way my Planting Wheel is set up. The Vegetable seeds that traditionally can be planted directly into the garden soil are in Bold print.

Some of the Cold Tolerant plants have varying degrees of needing protection, for

example, Broccoli needs protection from a Heavy Frost but can tolerate a Light Frost. While Cabbage is very Frost hardy. Even the Cold Tolerant vegetables have different requirements when it comes to a Killing Frost.

Most vegetables are transplanted into the ground from seedlings; some can be directly planted from seeds and/or from seedlings.

You can see from the pictures that I have structures in the raised beds. I put very heavy Painter’s clothe over the tomato cages to protect the tomatoes in January in Florida.

There are bags with a draw string on the herb pots. The picture with the 2 small raised beds on 2 x 4s and there a Mason’s Ladder over them. It is made of thin wire and it was better to stretch the 8’ structure over the 2 beds. Again, I have a heavy Painter’s Cloth over it.

If you want to extend your gardening season you can use coverings over the plants. I prefer to have some kind of structure over the plant so the cover does not break branches.

You can also start your seedlings 3 weeks before they are normally planted into the

soil. You do this with the understanding that you may have to protect them from a

Frost whether it is a killing frost or just a mild Frost. I always do this with my Tomatoes, so I can get the earliest Tomato possible.

My book, The Harvest Helper for Organic Gardening, goes into more detail about each vegetable’s protection requirements.