Where frost sets the season
Where frost sets the season, a crop still needs enough warm months to reach harvest.
As recorded: Where frost sets the season, a crop reaches harvest outdoors only where enough months in a row average at least its lowest monthly temperature to cover its days to maturity. Where fewer do, or none, it is a crop to grow with care: under cover, from an early start indoors, or as its quickest variety.
A good hunch A person has yet to check it against a source. If you skip this, you lose real yield. The planner suggests it.
How it works
A crop grows at the pace its days to maturity assume only in months at least as warm as the low end of its band, and in cooler months it grows too slowly to finish, so a frost-free season of cool months can end before the crop is ready.
What to do about it
Grow it under cover, in a greenhouse, tunnel or cloche; start it early indoors and choose its quickest variety; or grow a crop whose months these are.
The evidence
Evidence: not yet confirmed. It is cited to 8 sources, which a person has yet to read.
What this rests on - 8 pointers
Optimum Temperatures for Different Vegetables
Average monthly temperatures for warm season crops during their growing period: 65-80F. This includes melons, corn, eggplant, peppers, squash, and tomatoes.
Of the warm season vegetables, bush beans and summer squash are the most likely to succeed.
Eggplant needs warm conditions, and will not thrive during a cool season. There are varieties available that thrive in Minnesota’s short summer season.
In general, smaller-fruited peppers are more tolerant of both cool and hot temperatures
Cold rain, wind, and cool nights can keep coastal soils cold well into summer.
There are some things you can’t do very well on the coast, like tomatoes,
Most seed packets and variety descriptions in catalogs estimate the days from planting to maturity. Add about 10 days to this estimate because of the cooler, shorter days in the fall.
Plus one working note on how the sources were read. Every note is in the data download.
Where this rule stops
It reads each month's normal mean, the average of its normal daily high and low, so a warm summer, a sheltered wall or a cold snap is not seen. Its crop limits come from one table that does not say what its numbers measure; they are read as monthly averages, so its verdict is an estimate. Away from a weather station the model's monthly highs run cooler than the towns' own, so it can read a place's summer cooler than it is. Days to maturity are counted at their usual pace, and cool months slow a crop down.
Plants it applies to · 36
Fruiting vegetables · 12, Salad & greens · 10, Roots & tubers · 6, Beans & peas · 4, Onions & garlic · 2, Herbs · 2
Fruiting vegetables · 12
+4 moreShow fewer
Salad & greens · 10
Beans & peas · 4
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- Sources updated
- Details updated
- Added to the rules
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Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “Where frost sets the season, a crop still needs enough warm months to reach harvest.” Evidence grade: A good hunch. https://milpa.garden/rules/where-frost-sets-season-crop-reaches-harvest/
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.