Sometimes I think I'd fare better with a Magic 8 Ball (Try Again)than with logic, but my logical planned date is April 8, maybe 9. With an average last frost date of April 15, I can look at the seven day forecast and reevaluate. I recall last year we had a hard frost April 17. Then again, I recall several years back when I planted March 15 and harvested my first tom on May 1. I have enough 5 gallon buckets to turn upside down on all my plants, but that wouldn't suffice for snow.

Still a roll of the dice. April 8.

Does anyone know the Farmers almanac last frost date for Oklahoma?

Unless I have WOW's or some type of wrapped cage - I wait until after 89'er week to plant tomatoes and peppers - I just keep all my transplants outside so they can be hardening off (gently) but I can always move them inside if frost or even temps below 50 is predicted. My experience with putting plants out too early or even planting beans too early is that they grow slower and don't do as well as if I wait till the soil and air temps are staying warmer. Just my opinion.

I'm planting my tomatoes on April 25th because I'm getting them from the spring swap on the 24th :-)

I am going to take a peek at the soil temps and go from there....keeping my fingers crossed this year, and some thing to throw over the beds. :)

If you want to see a general map showing the average last frost date for any part of Oklahoma, click on the link below which takes you to a thread from last year. In that thread, click on the link in the first post and the map will pop up. Remember that when you are at the average last frost date for your area, you've still got a 50% chance of a freeze occuring.

If you want more specific data for your county, google and find the website of the Oklahoma Climatological Society and find the average last frost date maps from the left menu at that website's public data section. They'll have several maps showing the % chance of a freeze on various dates for each county.

My last frost date was March 27th here in extreme southcentral OK (where I am so far south that I am surrounded on three sides by Texas). We had a hard frost and 31 degrees yesterday morning, March 29th, and today it is 80 degrees here. I hope to be planting by the end of the week, but I'll be looking at the 10-day and 15-day forecasts very closely before I begin and I won't plant if I see anything questionable in the long-range forecast. I'll only plant the first 60 plants because I have 60 5-gallon buckets I can use to cover up plants if a late frost threatens. I won't plant the rest until I feel confident a frost isn't going to happen.

For what it is worth, we've lived here 11 years and have had a freeze AFTER our last frost date 9 of those 11 years, and in several of those years, the freeze was 2 or 3 weeks past the average last frost date, so I don't really trust freeze dates.

I have planted as early as March 9th with no real problem and as late as the first week in May and then had an unexpected, unforecast frost the day after I planted. So, flip a coin, guess, etc. and then just hope for the best. Our weather here varies wildly. For years, I've waited for the pecan tree to leaf out and then I plant and that works 80% of the time. Well, the pecan tree is late this year and I'm tired of waiting, so I may plant later in the week.

The safest method is to plant maybe a week to two before your last freeze date ONLY if you can cover them up regardless of the weather, or plant two weeks after your last frost date if you can't cover them up adequately to protect them.

I'm not convinced the cold weather is done with us yet, but I'll plant some anyway and just be prepared to cover them up as needed. I have buckets, frost blanket-type row covers, blankets, sheets and greenhouse plastic if I need to do a heavy-duty cover up job.

Because I've been burned by the late freezes a lot, I seem to plant later every year. I also raise all my own from seed, so I have about 400 plants and intend to transplant 140-160 of them of them into the ground. That way, I have backup plants if a snowstorm or hailstorm strikes. My extra plants get given away bit by bit to friends, neighbors and relatives as the days pass and a frost doesn't occur, and then I take all the ones I have left to the late-April forum plant swap.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Previous Thread With Frost Date Map

Here is the one from Mesonet and it varies slightly from the other for some areas.

I will probably start checking long range temps somewhere around the 7-10th of April and pick a date based on that. I also have a lot of backup plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mesonet Ag Weather

Well, that didn't work so well. After you get to that page, choose Oklahoma Climate Data, then choose Spring Last Freeze Date Map.

My tomatoes are just starting to get in high gear. If they keeep growing, i'll be forced to plant out earlier than I want to. My egg plant are growing even faster.

I'm going to set a FEW out this weekend (that I have the stuff to cover if it gets chilly)....and try to hold off on the rest until after April 9. But dang, these sprouts are GROWING almost 2 inches in one day! I should be thankful for the blessing.

Tigerdawn - YEA GIRL! I'm going have PLENTY to share and we're not far from each other! Hope you're feeling almost back to 100%!!!

Paula

Thanks to everyone. This is very helpful info. :)

Paula- I am feeling GREAT! I think the antibiotics might have killed off an unrelated low grage infection or something because I feel much better than I have in a long time. Thank you!

today

I've gotten leery about setting them out too early. In 07 it got to 18 F the second week of April. Last year almost as cold the third week of April. I planted so many this year thanks to Dawn, Carol and Jay--but not nearly as many as they did--that I can plant one or two of each variety and keep some in reserve. Last year I actually dug up my tomatoes and brought them back onto the porch. My little guys are still so small though that it will be the 16th before I plant probably. That's when DH will be available to install the cages which we've learned to do at planting time.

I set out half of my tomatoes yesterday and will do the other half tomorrow.

The Farmers almanac states that the last frost date for my area is March 29th, so hopefully that holds true. The 10 day forcast is looking good.

Boomer Sooner,

There is no way on this earth I trust last the average frost dates here in my county, and I'll explain why in a second. Remember that the average frost date is the one on which you have a 50% chance your last frost has occurred, but that means there is still a 50% chance you'll still have another freeze or frost. Sometimes I think we gardeners get too excited about the average last frost date and forget about that 50% chance. We also tend to forget that frost can form, under certain specific conditions, at above-freezing temperatures of 33-38 and, occasionally, even at 39 degrees.

Here in Love County, our average last frost date is March 28th, so theoretically it falls on or before that day half the time and after that day the other half. In reality, we've been here 12 springs now, and we've had a freeze or hard frost occur after our average 'last' date here in 9 of those 12 years. Here's what we've experienced:

2010 March 26th Hard Freeze and 32 degree low overnight.

2009 April 7th 19 degrees and hard freeze
April 14th 35 degrees and light frost

2008 April 28th 32 degrees
May 4th 35 degrees and light frost

2007 April 15th 32 degrees

2006 April 9th 31 degrees
April 27th 36 degrees and medium frost

2005 April 24th 32 degrees
May 1st 34 degrees and a hard, killing frost

2004 March 30th 32 degrees
April 1st 34 degrees and a hard, killing frost
May 2nd 38 degrees and light, patchy frost

2003 April 10th 28 degrees

2002 March 26th 30 degrees
April 5th 33 degrees and heavy frost

2001 March 20th
April 18th 35 degrees and moderate frost

2000 April 4th 32 degrees

1999 April 18th 31 degrees

So, I don't trust the last freeze dates since the more recent trend this last decade or so has been towards later and later freezes and frosts.

Having said all that, I've studied the long-range forecasts and think this may be the year we can trust our last freeze dates, more or less. I'm going to go ahead and start planting tomato plants....maybe tomorrow. Today's rain has made the ground a bit muddy and more rain is forecast for this afternoon and evening. Other than that, I feel like I can plant....but I do know that there's always the chance of a random late freeze pretty much any time in April and I have materials on hand to cover up my plants if that seems likely to happen on any given night.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, I know your right. But I do get excited to start planting.

I do have a way to cover my plants up if it does freeze so I'm not too worried. Plus we have global warming to think about. LOL.

yeh right....global warming....Ha!

Didn't get any set out this weekend afterall here in NE rural Norman....therefore, I'm making the major push this next weekend. I've been saving gallon milk jugs to be a "nursery" in their new homes anyway so I can go out and throw a blanket over them if chill's threaten. I've got to get my seedlings out so I know how many I'll have for the swap...that is....if "family" leaves me any extra!

Paula

Boomer Sooner, Believe me I do understand. I have wanted to plant for weeks, but knew I shouldn't, and when those frosty mornings hit last week after our average last frost date, I was relieved that I didn't have plants in the ground to cover up.

Here's what I do to feed my "tomato planting fever". In February, as soon as the stores have them (except for this year, which I'll explain in a second), I buy several tomato plants in 5" peat pots. They are usually about 8-10" tall, have main stems as big around as my little finger, and either already have blooms on them or are about to bloom any day. I buy 4 or 5 of them, and pot them up into 2-gallon or 3-gallon pots. Then, I carry them outside into the sun on warm days, and into the well-insulated but undeated garage/barn on cold nights. If the forecast low is going lower than maybe 25 degrees, I carry them into the house. Does it get old? Sometimes it does, but on the other hand, it means we'll be harvesting the first tomatoes in April or earliest May. Just knowing that helps me be patient about putting my home-grown seedlings into the ground.

This year, I was busy and didn't buy them the first week they were in the stores. Then, the second week, we had 9.25" of snow here, and parts of north central Texas south of us had up to 14" of snow. Guess what the brilliant minds at all the stores did? They left those nice, healthy, lush tomato plants outside where they all froze. So then I couldn't buy them for another week or so because all the stores had lost their entire inventory. I finally found some that hadn't frozen around the third week of February. They were at a Lowe's in Southlake, TX. Those six plants have about 14 or 15 tomatoes (total on all the plants combined, not that many on each plant) on them right now and we're expecting the first ripe one in 2 or 3 weeks. I can hardly wait. Having those few plants to fuss over, and knowing that we'll have ripe tomatoes soon, helps me slow down and wait for the right weather instead of being in a rush to plant.

I still have about 6 jars of canned tomato sauce and about the same amount of canned salsa, several quarts of frozen tomatoes in the freezer that I can use for cooking, and 3 gallon-sized zip-lock freezer bags full of dehydrated bite-sized tomatoes. The dehydrated ones, when rehydrated, still have wonderful flavor but of course they don't have the same texture as fresh tomatoes. I'm dying to have that first ripe tomato!

Paula, If this wind doesn't stop blowing, I don't know when I'll feel like the plants "can" go into the ground, but certainly by this weekend. The winds on Tuesday are supposed to gust up to around 40 mph---and that is getting so old.

I'm sort of dreading putting all of them into the ground, because then I'll still have about 200 left....and I'll start worrying about whether or not I can find good homes for all of them. lol

Dawn

Good Idea Dawn.

Dawn, how close are you to Ardmore Oklahoma?

About 25 or 30 miles in terms of driving straight south down I35 and then west. We are in the part of Love County that sits in a bend of the Red River, so Texas is on three sides of us.