the last frost.. is usually a week after i decide to plant my most tender plant... Very funny Ken :). you should be well enough introduced to the vagaries of mother nature.. to understand.. that no governmental information is not going to give you an 'good' answer ... I disagree completely. Knowledge is power Ken! And I think such data (weather stats) is best collected and then disseminated via a gov't agency. Having said that I cant find these #s! Up here the Victoria Day long weekend (the holiday is the Monday preceding May 25) is considered the weekend for which most annuals get planted. But clearly this is arbitrary. And given this apparently late spring I want to get my tender plants in the ground as soon as possible ...but I dont want to be reckless. So having knowledge of the "average last frost date" for my location would be useful and worthwhile.

This is THE authoritative source for averages and probabilities of first and last frost dates for a number of places in every state. Used to be a big scanned image of all the pages. Now they have them scanned in with text recognition, so they're easier to read. They're not all complete, but complete enough that it is still quite a resource. Athens: 90% chance that you could hit 32 on March 9. 50% chance that you could hit 32 on March 24. 10% chance that you could hit 32 on April 8. Based on data from 1971 to 2000. Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA Climatology data This post was edited by chrisb_sc_z7 on Tue, Jan 14, 14 at 13:41

Hi Truck! It depends on what it is you're wanting to plant! If it's "warm season" veggies, they can't take frost at all and would need to be well protected if we got down around or below freezing after they were in the ground. But "warm season" crops don't do well in cold soil and conditions, so it doesn't really help to plant them out "too soon" anyway! "Cool season" veggies (peas, spinach, cole crops, radishes, +) can take frosts (and snow) IF they're well hardened off before they're put into the ground. Things like hardy perennials & herbs (and trees and bushes) can also take frost and snow as long as they've been well hardened off before planting. If any of those things are purchased locally at a garden center where they've been grown outside, they should already be hardened off. But if you pick up something at a big box store or somewhere else where their plants are shipped in from another state (often California or somewhere on the West Coast), they will NOT be hardened off and you'd need to do it yourself in order to be able to safely plant them out. So it just depends on what you're thinking of! Hardy stuff (that does NOT include the "Hardy Boy" brand, which is just a marketing name!) can definitely be planted out when there's still "danger of frost" as long as it's been adequately acclimated. Welcome to RMG, Skybird

Conventional wisdom says to plant bare root when the ground has warmed up enough to sustain the plant. For strawberries, that would be when the soil is about 50ð and/or when lilacs bloom. With some cover you might be ok to try 45ð or when lilacs leaf. For me that is between May 1st and May 15th. If you already have them, put them in some loose wet sand and keep in a cool dark place for several weeks. Of course the time frame changes if you have raised beds. I would still use the soil temp.