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 10. 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 12, so we don't dare plant that early. We wait a few days and by March 23 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° | Jan 21 | Jan 9 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Last 20° | Feb 13 | Feb 3 | Jan 27 | Jan 20 | Jan 13 | Jan 3 | -- | -- | -- |
| Last 24° | Feb 24 | Feb 15 | Feb 8 | Feb 2 | Jan 27 | Jan 21 | Jan 14 | Jan 2 | -- |
| Last 28° | Mar 9 | Mar 1 | Feb 24 | Feb 19 | Feb 15 | Feb 11 | Feb 6 | Feb 1 | Jan 24 |
| Last 32° | Mar 22 | Mar 15 | Mar 11 | Mar 6 | Mar 3 | Feb 27 | Feb 23 | Feb 18 | Feb 11 |
| Last 36° | Apr 10 | Apr 4 | Mar 30 | Mar 27 | Mar 23 | Mar 20 | Mar 16 | Mar 12 | Mar 6 |
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° | Jan 2 | Jan 19 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| First 20° | Dec 21 | Dec 31 | Jan 8 | Jan 15 | Jan 23 | Feb 2 | -- | -- | -- |
| First 24° | Dec 8 | Dec 17 | Dec 23 | Dec 29 | Jan 3 | Jan 9 | Jan 16 | Jan 26 | -- |
| First 28° | Nov 18 | Nov 27 | Dec 4 | Dec 9 | Dec 14 | Dec 19 | Dec 25 | Dec 31 | Jan 9 |
| First 32° | Nov 3 | Nov 10 | Nov 16 | Nov 20 | Nov 24 | Nov 28 | Dec 3 | Dec 8 | Dec 16 |
| First 36° | Oct 27 | Nov 2 | Nov 6 | Nov 9 | Nov 13 | Nov 16 | Nov 19 | Nov 24 | Nov 29 |
Now that you know your frost dates, use our Garden Planting Calendar for Thomasville, GA 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.
The Victory Seed Company is family owned and operated, working to help fellow gardeners succeed by selling popular vegetable, herb and flower seeds. Since the 1990s they have been heavily involved with the preservation of rare, open-pollinated, heirloom seeds. Visit them at www.VictorySeeds.com.
