It looks like the last frost of the season might just be in the next few days. Which means the next weekend will be the first plausible time to get the garden work finalized and get some direct sow seeds in the ground. Current forecasts show a trend upwards for temperature but be ready to protect any seedlings for the next 3-4 weeks at least.
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Here are some pictures of my current seed starting in the house. I’ve had to "pot on" more seedlings than I had expected but I jumped the gun hoping for an early last frost and that didn’t happen. I haven’t lost any just yet, but a couple of them are showing stress.
are you sure??? oh my goodness this is exciting! are you sure sure?? i mean i know you can’t predict the weather but how have you done in past years?
I’m being a bit optimistic yes. The NWS tracks this kind of thing and they say that on average it happens around the first week in May. If you plant anything now you need to be ready to protect them for the next 3-4 weeks. If you want to be 90% positive the last frost has happened you need to wait until the end of May. I can’t wait that long!
The weather this coming weekend should be awesome though so use the weekend to get things started…but maybe hold off on the less hardy seeds. They are forecasting rain thur/fri so pray that it doesn’t hold off! We want the rain earlier in the week!
gardening is such a risky business
Oh no! It’s going to be windy and chilly on Sunday (4/25). I’ve seen it snow on Mother’s day and that’s the earliest that I would consider planting. In Chicago, at least.
Which is why lots of Chicago houses have a sun porch on them. That way you can use it as a green house until it’s time to plant.
Ps. The Oak Park Conservatory is having it’s plant sales the next two weeks.
http://www.oakparkparks.com/parks/conservatory_events.htm