New to Southern gardening please help

15 years ago

Hi All!

I have been a gardener for years but that was way up north in VT so I could use a bit of help on when to plant down here.

I put in a small raised bed and have started my lettuce, but I am curious as to when it will be safe to put in my Tomato and pepper plants. Also planting cucumber and yellow squash and Kohlarabi from seed.

Any advice you have would be helpful, because I know I can plant earlier down here but not sure how early. With all the gardening places here selling plants already I have a feeling it cant be too long 8-)

Thanks all and I look forward to this forum. Its great to get back into gardening!

Peace,

Caly

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Comments (5)

cannahavana
15 years ago
April 15th is our usual average last frost. That is the date I go by for planting anything tender and moving my indoor plants outside for the season.

Welcome to TN!

Rebecca
brandon7 TN_zone7
15 years ago
Caly,

Welcome to the Tennessee Forum! I noticed you're in Knoxville. I hope you're planning to come to the East Tennessee Plant Swap! I can guarantee that you will LOVE it!

You can find guidelines about when to plant crops from seed on the University of Tennessee Extension Site (see link below). Look particularly under the "Vegetables" section on the "Gardening" page at "Guide to Cool-Season Vegetables" and "Guide to Warm-Season Vegetables".

It's still a little early to plant out tomato and pepper plants. -----yikes, I'm out of time, I will try to come back and finish later, sorry

Here is a link that might be useful: UT Extension Publications
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tn_veggie_gardner
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Depends on what area of Knoxville you are in. There are a lot of high elevation areas around there that stay cold a lot longer than the TN Valley, where i'm at. If you're not too high up, Farmer's Almanac states May 12 as the safe day for this year. So, you can probably put outside any time after the beginning of May.
brandon7 TN_zone7
15 years ago
OK, I'm back.

As was stated above, April 15 is around the average last frost date for this area. But, you still don't want to plant your tomatoes out even then, unless the weather predictions at that time call for considerably warmer weather for at least a few weeks. The reason for this, is that 1. just because April 15 is the average last frost date, that doesn't mean that there can't be a late frost, and 2. tomatoes can be stunted when exposed to temperatures below somewhere around 40 degrees F (depending on humidity and other factors). Check the 10 day forecast on weather.com, etc around the 15th and make a decision at that time. The forecast for the next few weeks is still in flux. Just a week ago, the predictions for minimum temperatures for next week were well above where they are now. The weather forecaster folks frequently guess wrong. Sometimes it seems that a flip of a coin would be about as accurate as some of their predictions.
columbiastock
15 years ago
I agree with "tn veggie gardner" . It will not be what is being sold anywhere, it will be the warmth of the ground! I start all my tomato and pepper seeds inside, and always wait at least 2-3 weeks to start my pepper seeds. If you put plants out to early, if the ground is not warm enough, they will either die or just set there doing nothing. Cucumbers and squash also need the warmer dirt. I live in Columbia, we have onions, beets and spinach in our garden now.. These can handle the colder temps we will have until later in April early May for tomatoes, but I wait a few more weeks to plant in the garden my peppers, squash, and cucumbers.

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New to Southern gardening please help

Comments (5)

cannahavana

brandon7 TN_zone7

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