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 8. 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 9, so we don't dare plant that early. We wait a few days and by March 21 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 31 | Jan 16 | Dec 26 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
Last 20° | Feb 19 | Feb 9 | Feb 1 | Jan 25 | Jan 17 | Jan 6 | -- | -- | -- |
Last 24° | Feb 28 | Feb 19 | Feb 13 | Feb 7 | Feb 2 | Jan 27 | Jan 21 | Jan 12 | -- |
Last 28° | Mar 9 | Mar 2 | Feb 25 | Feb 20 | Feb 16 | Feb 12 | Feb 8 | Feb 3 | Jan 27 |
Last 32° | Mar 21 | Mar 14 | Mar 10 | Mar 6 | Mar 2 | Feb 26 | Feb 22 | Feb 18 | Feb 11 |
Last 36° | Apr 8 | Apr 2 | Mar 28 | Mar 24 | Mar 21 | Mar 17 | Mar 13 | Mar 9 | Mar 3 |
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 5 | Jan 22 | Feb 13 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
First 20° | Dec 16 | Dec 28 | Jan 6 | Jan 15 | Jan 24 | Feb 5 | -- | -- | -- |
First 24° | Dec 7 | Dec 17 | Dec 25 | Dec 31 | Jan 7 | Jan 13 | Jan 21 | Jan 31 | -- |
First 28° | Nov 16 | Nov 26 | Dec 2 | Dec 8 | Dec 14 | Dec 19 | Dec 25 | Dec 31 | Jan 10 |
First 32° | Nov 6 | Nov 13 | Nov 19 | Nov 23 | Nov 27 | Dec 1 | Dec 5 | Dec 10 | Dec 17 |
First 36° | Oct 28 | Nov 2 | Nov 7 | Nov 10 | Nov 14 | Nov 17 | Nov 21 | Nov 25 | Dec 1 |
Now that you know your frost dates, use our Garden Planting Calendar for Tifton, 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.