Don't sow or set out tender crops before your last frost date
As recorded: Tender species must not be scheduled before the site's last frost date.
Well established A person has checked it against its sources. If you skip this, the planting fails. The planner won’t allow it.
How it works
Ice nucleation in leaf tissue.
What to do about it
Sow or set out after the last frost date, or start indoors and transplant once it has passed.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
The 2 sources
From seed: around the date of the average last spring frost
Transplant to the garden after all danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed.
Plants it applies to · 44
Fruiting vegetables · 14, Fruit & berries · 8, Beans & peas · 5, Herbs · 5, Flowers · 5, Salad & greens · 3, Cover crops & soil builders · 2, Roots & tubers · 1, Perennial vegetables · 1
Fruiting vegetables · 14
+6 moreShow fewer
Fruit & berries · 8
Beans & peas · 5
Salad & greens · 3
Roots & tubers · 1
Perennial vegetables · 1
Read next
- Understanding your frost datesYour last and first frost dates are the clock the whole garden runs on. What they mean, why they're a probability, and how they decide when each crop can go out.
- Starting seeds indoorsWhich crops need a head start, how many weeks before your last frost to sow them, and the list of what you should sow straight in the ground instead.
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- Details updated
- A person read the sources and confirmed it
- Details updated
- Details updated
- Wording made clearer
- Added to the rules
More ways Milpa can help
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Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “Don't sow or set out tender crops before your last frost date.” Evidence grade: Well established. https://milpa.garden/rules/tender-species-not-be-scheduled-before-site/
A garden planner built on graded evidence. Every claim states its evidence grade and links its sources on the page. Cite it with the grade, and add the date you read it.
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How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.