416 - Your last frost date has arrived! Now what?
The Beginner's Garden with Jill McSheehy
Jill McSheehy
4.4 • 734 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s my average last frost date—maybe it’s yours too. So, is it time to plant everything? Not so fast. In this episode, we’re diving into what your last frost date really means and why it’s more of a guidepost than a green light.
We’ll cover:
🌱 What the “average last frost date” actually means
🌱 Why warm-weather crops might still need to wait
🌱 How soil temps, night temps, and forecasts factor in
🌱 What to do if a cold snap hits after you’ve planted
🌱 Tips for protecting your plants and setting them up to thrive
Plus, I’ll share a few hard-learned lessons from my early gardening days—and how a soil thermometer, weather watching, and a little patience can go a long way.
🎥 Don’t forget: The Productive Gardener’s Blueprint is now available to watch on demand! I re-recorded it with updates for April planting—perfect for this exact moment in the season. Watch it at journeywithjill.net/masterclass
And we’re opening up Dream to Garden one last time this spring—learn more at journeywithjill.net/dreamtogarden
Show Notes:
Thank you to our sponsors: Organic REV | Garden in Minutes
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My Products:
2025 Complete Garden Planner (plus several new editions!)
https://shop.journeywithjill.net/
Vegetable Gardening for Beginners Book: https://amzn.to/3TZeJux
Products I recommend:
Recommended Brands & Products page:
https://journeywithjill.net/recommended-brands-and-products/
https://www.amazon.com/shop/thebeginnersgarden
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Link to Beginner's Garden Podcast past episodes: https://journeywithjill.net/the-beginners-garden-podcast/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, before we get started, if you missed the live garden planning workshop back in February, |
| 0:05.7 | the productive gardener's blueprint, you will get a chance to watch it on demand starting today for a |
| 0:12.0 | limited time. And to make it more timely for now, for April, I re-recorded it, adding some basic |
| 0:18.9 | guidelines that will be appropriate for you as we're |
| 0:21.9 | starting to plant now. Because while it may be too late to plant some crops, it's not too late |
| 0:28.1 | to plant others, and I'll help you go through that process to figure out what you actually can |
| 0:33.7 | plant now. We'll have the link in the show notes, journey withjill.net slash masterclass. |
| 0:39.9 | Hey there and welcome to the Beginners Garden podcast. If you're new here, I'm Jill and I live in |
| 0:45.1 | Arkansas where we get winters. Now for those of us with winters, when we're planning our gardens, |
| 0:52.7 | the date that we work off of, the date, when we know |
| 0:56.6 | when to plant what, is our average last frost date. But what do we do when that date actually |
| 1:04.2 | arrives? Is it go time? Like I always thought when I was a beginning gardener, do we automatically put out all of our |
| 1:12.3 | warm season crops into the garden? Considering that we have planned everything around this date, |
| 1:18.6 | you may think the answer is yes, like I did as a beginner, but I have learned that is not always |
| 1:25.5 | the case. If you've had any experience gardening, you've learned |
| 1:29.2 | like I did, maybe even the hard way, that our average last frost date is actually just a guidepost, |
| 1:37.2 | so to speak. When we start planting, that comes with a bit of nuance. Today we're going to talk |
| 1:44.1 | about what you need to know to get your plants off to the best start |
| 1:49.0 | and to avoid them dying from an unexpected turn of the weather. |
| 1:55.3 | This episode is brought to you in part by Garden in Minutes. |
| 1:59.4 | Once your average last prostate has passed and it's time |
| 2:03.0 | to start thinking about planting your tomatoes, make sure that they have the support that they need |
... |
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