March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Last frost, proper planting time are difficult milestones to predict

May Day marks the unofficial start of the gardening season in our area which means, among other things, that most Mainers will begin studying the phase of the moon with deadly earnestness. Belief in the notion that our last spring frost is somehow controlled by the full of the moon borders on the unshakable, despite decades of meteorological evidence to the contrary. So, for the sake of the faithful, my wife included, let us begin by noting that this year the full moon comes on May 5 and again on June 4.

Actually, this lunar schedule works out quite well, assuming that no one would be foolish enough to trust the May 5 moon and plant their entire tomato crop on May 6. Those who wait all the way until June 4 will be rewarded to find the soil a whole month warmer and the statistical likelihood of frost all but nonexistent.

All of this raises the perennial question of when to plant each type of plant. “There is a season, turn, turn, turn” as the song goes. Before getting into the specifics, let’s remind ourselves that what we are really waiting for is a non-event. We are waiting for the frost to go away and stay away. If a frost occurs on May 15, there is absolutely nothing in that event to tell us whether it is the last frost or not.

Statistics and probabilities are all we really have to go by. But my father always used to say that statistics are like the lamppost and the proverbial drunk. The lamppost will shed some light and it will lend some support, but it won’t show him the way home. Which explains why, in the 20 years I have been gardening in the Bangor area, I have known the last spring frost to come as early as May 10 and as late as June 13. Doing some arithmetic, I find that the average of these two dates is May 26 1/2, not far from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s figure of May 31.

What really matters more than the phase of the moon or the calendar is determining when the last frost occurs in your particular microclimate. A friend who lives in Waldoboro has a real frost pocket to garden in. Last summer she had frost in June, July and August. And she lives near the coast!

All you city dwellers with plenty of houses, automobiles and blacktop for heat sources can probably count on missing the last frost that we country dwellers routinely get. And country dwellers who live on hilltops or south-facing slopes will be spared the frost that settles in the lowlands. The only way to know about your own microclimate is to study it or talk to a neighbor who has done so.

So, what can we plant this weekend? In the vegetable patch I’d suggest that peas, spinach, beets and onions are your best bet. In a week or two, depending on how the season goes, you can put in lettuce, carrots, cole crops and potatoes. Gamblers can set out early tomatoes any time after the 15th of May if they are willing either to protect them or lose them. (To protect tomatoes you can try wall-o-waters — soda bottles filled with water and duct taped together to form a ring — hot caps, or whatever your Yankee ingenuity can come up with.)

In the annual bed, this is prime pansy time. Pansies can stand 6 inches of late spring snow. Dusty miller, sweet alyssum, snapdragons, calendula, nicotiana and petunias are all somewhat tolerant of frost, but I’d recommend waiting a week or two before putting them to the test out in the open. Close to the house, perhaps.

Michael Zuck of Bangor is a horticulturist and the NEWS garden columnist. Send inquiries to him at 2106 Essex St., Bangor, Maine 04401.


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