What's a safe temperature for tender plants? When the nightly temperature falls, frost can form, even above 32°, because the air is colder high above the ground and the frost can form up there and then fall down onto your garden and do some damage, even if it's 36° on the ground. So many factors come into play, including wind, concrete, houses, trees and other structures, etc etc etc. Because of all this, you might want to consider 36° as "the danger zone".
In your average springtime, you have a 90% chance that there will be no 36° nights by April 15. In other words, you can pretty much count on being safe from frost by that day. But we want to get those tomatoes in the ground as soon as possible, right? We see that there's still an 80% chance of 36° on March 15, so we don't dare plant that early. We wait a few days and by March 27 we are at the 50/50 point. At this point, we are close and we can start watching the weather forecast. If the upcoming week's forecast doesn't show below 40°, then it's probably okay to risk planting out your plants. If conditions change and a surprise frost does threaten, there's always things you can do to protect plants from frost.
Temperature | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Last 16° | Feb 12 | Feb 3 | Jan 26 | Jan 20 | Jan 13 | Jan 4 | Dec 20 | -- | -- |
Last 20° | Feb 24 | Feb 14 | Feb 6 | Jan 31 | Jan 24 | Jan 17 | Jan 9 | Dec 24 | -- |
Last 24° | Mar 10 | Feb 27 | Feb 20 | Feb 13 | Feb 7 | Jan 31 | Jan 24 | Jan 15 | Dec 29 |
Last 28° | Mar 20 | Mar 11 | Mar 4 | Feb 26 | Feb 20 | Feb 14 | Feb 8 | Feb 1 | Jan 23 |
Last 32° | Apr 1 | Mar 24 | Mar 19 | Mar 14 | Mar 10 | Mar 6 | Mar 1 | Feb 24 | Feb 16 |
Last 36° | Apr 15 | Apr 8 | Apr 4 | Mar 31 | Mar 27 | Mar 24 | Mar 20 | Mar 15 | Mar 9 |
The charts on this page show the probabilities of receiving a certain temperature on a certain day. Some examples that might help:
Temperature | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% | 90% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First 16° | Dec 17 | Dec 28 | Jan 6 | Jan 14 | Jan 23 | Feb 3 | -- | -- | -- |
First 20° | Dec 8 | Dec 16 | Dec 23 | Dec 28 | Jan 3 | Jan 10 | Jan 18 | -- | -- |
First 24° | Nov 23 | Dec 1 | Dec 7 | Dec 13 | Dec 18 | Dec 23 | Dec 29 | Jan 5 | Jan 19 |
First 28° | Nov 13 | Nov 21 | Nov 26 | Dec 1 | Dec 5 | Dec 9 | Dec 14 | Dec 20 | Dec 27 |
First 32° | Nov 5 | Nov 10 | Nov 14 | Nov 18 | Nov 21 | Nov 24 | Nov 28 | Dec 2 | Dec 7 |
First 36° | Oct 25 | Oct 31 | Nov 4 | Nov 8 | Nov 11 | Nov 14 | Nov 18 | Nov 22 | Nov 28 |
Now that you know your frost dates, use our Garden Planting Calendar for Rusk, TX to know when to sow and transplant your various vegetable plants!
Data is provided by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Photography by Garden.org member TBGDN.