May 1, 2023 • 25 mins
This time of the year, I see many people asking questions similar to this: I'm in zone xyz, is it too soon to plant beans outside? On this episode we talk about what USDA hardiness zones or growing zones are and why I don't think they matter at all to "regular" vegetable gardens. We talk about instead why instead last and first average frost dates, the length between those dates (known as the growing season) and ambient air and soil temperatures are FAR better indicators as to when you should start that veggie garden. I also mention http://almanac.com as a great resource for much of that info.
Enjoy!!
Brian
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian (00:03):
I'm your host, Brian Wells, and I'm a fourth
generation homesteader Since2008, my family and I have been
homesteading here in beautifulupstate New York.
In 2019, I launched theHomestead Journey Podcast to
help people just like you getstarted and find success on
their journey towardsself-sufficiency, self-reliance,
(00:25):
and sustainability.
This is the Homestead journeyand this.
Is season four.
Well, hello everyone andwelcome, welcome, welcome to
another episode of the HomesteadJourney podcast.
My name is Brian Wells.
(00:46):
This is season four, and I amcoming to you from three B Farm
and Homestead here in beautifulupstate New York this is episode
155 of the Homestead JourneyPodcast, and today we are going
to be talking about gardening.
So last week we ended our serieswith regards to the
(01:09):
Mediterranean diet, and we aregoing to start a new series here
in the near future on.
Homestead as empty nestersbecause in a few short weeks,
well, Bonnie and I are going tofind ourselves in that next
phase of our lives as Brian jheads off to college.
(01:30):
We've done some episodes in thepast with regards to how to
homestead with children, but.
I've not seen a lot of contentwith regards to how to homestead
once those children leave home,and so that's gonna be a bit of
a change for us.
We're going to talk about that,but that's coming up in the
future.
Today we're going to be talkingabout whether or not your U S D
(01:54):
A hardiness zone or your growingzone as some people refer to.
It matters.
When you are planting yourvegetable garden.
But before we get there, I dowant to go ahead and bring you
up to speed with what we've beendoing here on three B Farm and
Homestead.
So let's jump on over to thisepisodes.
(02:17):
Homestead happenings.
The first thing I wanted toshare with you is the fact that
we are sending piglets off tonew homes.
We sent, uh, five more pigletsoff to new homes this week.
(02:37):
Two of them went to new buyers,and three of them actually went
to some friends of ours thatpicked up a couple of pigs last
week.
And, The great thing is thatthese loads have just been
getting easier and easier andeasier.
Watching those pigs walk rightthrough the gate, right into
(02:58):
crates and us being able to loadthem without fussing or chasing
or anything like that hascertainly been great.
I, I, I hate to say that we'vefinally got things figured out,
but maybe we do have thingsfinally figured out in, just in
time for us to, uh, get out ofpigs.
(03:20):
But certainly having them loadup easily and then head on to
their new homes without a lot ofissue.
Uh, w was certainly very, verynice.
The one family, the, the friendsof ours, they have, uh, a little
girl, and I think I mentionedthis last week, that, uh, she is
in the Sunday school class thatmy wife and I are teaching.
(03:43):
And so I, I talked to her alittle bit about them today.
She actually came down with herdad and helped pick up the pigs
on Wednesday and.
They had named the first twopigs thing one and thing two,
and so this morning I asked herin Sunday school what they had
named the pigs and the new pigs,the three little ones that they
(04:03):
picked up.
They have named bacon, porkchop, and chorizo.
So I love those names and uh,she is really enjoying the pigs.
I also got a Facebook messagefrom the other people that
bought, uh, two other pigs fromme.
They said that the pigs havesettled in very, very well, that
(04:25):
they're doing fine, and it justmakes me happy to know that my
pigs are going to good homes.
But I do have a few pigs left.
So if you are interested ingetting into American Guinea
hogs and you live anywheres nearwhere I do, reach out to me,
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net orping me on any of our social
(04:45):
media accounts.
I will make you an offer.
You cannot refuse.
So we do have two other littlepigs, left feeder pigs.
They're about a year old and oneof the other things we did this
week is actually move them fromthe pen.
Where they had been, which hadkind of gotten waterlogged and
(05:07):
soggy and moved them up to theRuth Stout bed, and they've been
up there doing some work for me.
Kind of rototilling that up anddealing with some of the weeds
that had kind of gotten a awayfrom you a little bit.
What I've been doing is takingtheir feed and sprinkling it on
the areas where I want them toreally disturb it, and that
(05:29):
seems to be working out very,very well.
So That move also went mucheasier than I had expected.
Now the Ruth Stout bed is upover the hill from where we have
been keeping the pigs, and I wasa little nervous as to how well
they would follow the bucket andwhether or not they might dart
on down the way and head on downthe driveway towards the road.
(05:53):
So I called Bonnie out to haveher, help me with this move a
little bit and.
Honestly, I didn't eat her.
The pigs just followed thatbucket right up over the hill,
right into the garden area.
And so they're doing theirthing.
They're, they're doing the workfor me and I am very, very happy
(06:14):
about that.
Once I was able to get the threelittle pigs onto their new home
bacon pork chop in there that.
Opened up some area for me to dosome work on.
Our chicken coop that I had beenneeding to do where I had them
set up was right in front of thedoor going into our chicken coop
(06:37):
and the steps.
Going into the chicken coop hadjust deteriorated and, and
really had fallen apart, and itreally was a safety issue.
In fact, my dad almost slippedand fell while he was taking
care of the animals when we wereup in Alaska.
And so I knew I needed to dosomething about it, but it was.
It was in a, in a difficult spotbecause the way I had the
(07:01):
fencing run the hog panel runfor the three little pigs.
I couldn't get in there easily,and so we got the three little
pigs gone.
I collapsed that pen and then Iwas able to take out the old
steps, level out the ground, putin some concrete block steps,
(07:21):
and so those shouldn't, rot,shouldn't fall apart, and Bonnie
definitely was much happier withthat.
Over the old dilapidated stepsthat had been falling apart and
really needed to be replaced fora while.
This week I also startedclearing out the raised beds in
(07:44):
preparation for getting thoseplanted.
Now, I had quite a bit of thingsgoing on in the evening this
week, so I wasn't able to get.
As much of that done as I wantedto, and I certainly am a bit
behind as far as where Inormally would be with regards
to having things planted.
Usually by now I'd have my peasplanted.
I'd probably have spinach andradishes and carrots, and a lot
(08:08):
of the, the cool weather cropswould already be planted.
And right now Besides my garlicthat I planted back in the fall,
I have nothing up in my raisedbeds.
But this week I did go throughand spend some time weeding
those raised beds and preparingthem for us to be able to get
things planted.
So hopefully I'll be able to getsome things in the ground,
(08:30):
although it is supposed to rainall this week.
In fact, yesterday and todayit's been rain.
It's just been miserable,overcast, not really.
That heavy rain, just thatmiserable kind of misty, just
enough to make thingsuncomfortable.
So, yeah, I, I'm probably beinga little bit of a softie here.
(08:54):
It's like, come on, man up, getout there and get it done.
But I just didn't wanna get outthere and get wet and nasty.
And so I, I haven't, but I, Imay have to do that.
If I'm gonna get things in theground and not get really,
really far behind, I, I may justhave to suck it up buttercup and
get out there because certainlythe peas aren't gonna pop up if
(09:15):
I don't get'em in the ground.
The lettuce, the, the spinachand, and all of that kind of
stuff that could be in theground, could be germinating,
could be popping up.
Not gonna pop up if I don't getit in the ground.
So we'll see how things go thisweek, but certainly.
Uh, it, it, it doesn't lookgood.
It, it does look like this weekis gonna be a bit of a washout.
(09:38):
Um, so, so we'll see.
Uh, but it did certainly feelgood to get my hand in the dirt
and to start prepping thosebeds, and I am excited to
hopefully get some seeds in theground this week and really get
(09:58):
garden.
2023 underway.
I did want to just provide youwith a bit of an update on the
seed starting system that isworking out really, really,
really well.
My tomato plants are up probablyfour inches.
Um, my peppers are up probablythree inches.
My bras are looking good.
(10:20):
In fact, one of the things thatI do need to do, That I haven't
done already is get in there andmake some difficult decisions
with regards to, you know,cutting out some of the ones
where maybe I had multiple seedssprout in the same plug.
And so definitely you, youwanna, you want to pick out
(10:41):
which one is the strongerlooking one because you don't
want the weaker one robbingresources.
From the stronger one.
And so this week I definitely doneed to get down in there and,
um, make some difficultdecisions and get things cleaned
up.
But folks, this seed startingsystem in my unheated basement.
(11:02):
Really, really working out very,very well and I'm very happy
with it.
So hopefully this coming weekwe'll really be able to get some
stuff underway.
But the weather is the weather.
My grandfather used to say,whether the weather be cold,
weather, the weather, be hot,the weather's, the weather.
No matter the weather.
Weather, we like it or not.
(11:22):
All right, let's jump on over tothis week's charting the course.
So on this week's charting thecourse, I wanted to spend a
little bit of time talking aboutU S D A, growing zones of
hardiness zones, and whether ornot they actually matter.
(11:46):
When talking about planting avegetable garden, one of the
things that I see very, veryfrequently, especially this time
of the year, is people will askquestions along these lines.
I'm in zone five, I'm in zonefive A, I'm in zone five B,
whatever it is.
Is it too early to plant beansoutside?
(12:09):
I saw somebody ask that exactquestion.
Actually, I can't remember if itwas this past week or the week
before, but recently in one ofthe groups that I'm a part of,
actually a group that I'm anadmin in, and so I replied to
that individual and I said,actually looking at the wrong
thing, I.
Your, your growing zone doesn'tmatter.
What you need to look at is whenyour last average frost date is,
(12:32):
and that's going to be a betterindicator as far as when you
should plant seeds outside.
Well, there was somebody whodisagreed with me on that, and
that's fine.
I, I certainly am not, uh, goingto say I'm always right.
I do happen to think in thisregard, uh, in this area I am
right, but this person said,Hey, I'm a horticulturalist, I'm
(12:53):
a farmer.
And the growing zone is what isimportant to look at.
Your frost.
Doesn't matter.
I, I, I'm really not quite surewhy he said that, because it
makes no sense to me.
If you understand what the U S DA hardiness zone or growing zone
is, and Canada has a verysimilar system.
(13:15):
I'm not sure outside of theUnited States and Canada how it
works.
My guess is they probably havesimilar, a similar concept, but
what that looks at is reallyonly one data point.
And the data point it looks atis.
The average coldest temperaturethat you get in your area.
(13:38):
Now, when we're talking aboutplanting a garden and we're
talking about planting annuals,how cold it gets in the middle
of the winter doesn't matter atall.
It doesn't matter.
One iotta how cold it gets inthe coldest part of the winter
because the crops that we aretalking about planting in our
(14:01):
gardens, annual crops, thingsthat we seed every year, they're
not gonna be in the ground.
During the coldest part of theyear, unless you have
specialized equipment, and we'renot talking about that, but for
the general average backyardgardener and homesteader, we are
not going to have beams in theground in January and February.
(14:25):
So the hardiness zone does notmatter.
One iotta.
What matters when it comes toplanting things like that really
is three or four.
Other data points.
First is your last averagefrosty.
Second is your first average.
(14:48):
Frosty.
Third is the amount of timebetween those dates, which we
would refer to as your growingseason.
And finally, we would look atyour ambient temperatures, both
your air temperature, as well asyour soil temperature.
are certain things that aregoing to be what we refer to as
(15:10):
cold, hearty.
So that would be things likespinach, brassicas, kale,
cabbages, things of that nature.
Carrots are cold, hardy.
Those are things that you mightbe able to plant before your
last average, frosty, becausethey can handle cooler
temperatures.
are things like your beans,tomatoes, peppers, Other things
(15:35):
like that, that they are notcold hardy, they're what we
would refer to as frostsensitive.
And so you don't want to plantthem out too soon because the
cold temperatures, if you get alittle bit of a frost, it will
kill them.
So knowing your last averagefrost date is going to be key.
(15:59):
To know when you can startplanting things outdoors and
when you can begin to direct sewthings into the ground.
In fact, many of your seedpackets.
Are going to refer to your lastaverage frosty to let you know
when you can direct so, or whenyou might want to start them
(16:23):
indoors.
So things like your tomatoes andyour peppers, they might say so
indoors four to six weeks beforeyour last average frost date.
Now knowing your first averagefrost date is also key because
that's going to let you know.
How long you can kind of pushthings, and you may have to do a
(16:47):
little bit of math to back up toknow, okay, if I sow this
particular vegetable and ittakes 85 days to reach maturity,
if my first average frost dateis, let's say October 15th, I've
gotta count back 85 days.
At least to say, okay, this iswhat it's gonna take for me to
(17:12):
be able to get a harvest,otherwise I'm just wasting space
in my garden and I'm wastingseed if I plant beyond that.
So you're not gonna wanna plantsomething and I, I don't know
what 85 days from October 15this no idea.
I've just made up that date.
But certainly I know that if Iplan it on September 15th, Uh,
(17:37):
that's a fool's errand.
It's never going to reachmaturity.
I'm never going to achieve aharvest if I plan it too late.
So knowing your first averagefrost rate is important from
that regard, and then knowingthe difference between the two,
what some people refer to asyour growing season, that's
(17:58):
going to be the number of days.
That you have available to kindof use.
And what do I mean by that?
Well, let's say there's a squashthat you want to grow, and that
squash takes 105 days to reachmaturity.
So if you only have a growingseason, that on average is 90
days.
That's probably not a squashvariety that you're going to
(18:19):
wanna try unless you have rowcovers or you have a hoop house
or something like that.
Now you may be able to start itearlier indoors and, and kind of
add on sometime, but knowingyour growing season, the length
of time between those is very,very important to know, not when
(18:44):
you should plant, but knowingwhat you should plant.
Knowing the ambient temperaturein the air and the temperature
of your soil is also going to beimportant because there are
certain things that don'tgerminate well when the soil is
cold or when the soil is wet orwhen it's not very warm outside.
(19:09):
So if you've got cool days, 40degrees, certainly above
freezing, but the seed packetsays wait till it's 60 degrees
before you plant, then you, youwanna wait till it's 60 degrees
before you plant.
If you plant at 40 degrees, yourgermination rates are going to
(19:31):
suffer.
The seed may never germinatebecause it rots in the ground,
or it just may germinate poorlybecause you jumped the gun.
So knowing your soil temperatureand the ambient air temperature
and what that seed requires isalso very, very important.
The only way that your growingzone means anything with regards
(19:57):
to gardening has to do withperennials.
So things like asparagus andrhubarb and your, your berry
bushes, so raspberries,blueberries, you know, currents,
fruit trees like apples andpeaches and pears and so on and
so forth.
Citrus, another good examplethat is when you need to take
(20:19):
into consideration yourheartiness zone because there
are certain varieties that aregoing to do well.
When it gets very cold, there'scertain varieties that actually
need it to get cold in order forthem to be able to produce
properly.
And then there are othervarieties that cannot handle the
cold at all.
(20:40):
And you're lucky if they survivethrough the winter, but even if
they do survive through thewinter, they're not going to
produce.
And so again, it ends up being awaste of space and a waste of
money for you to plant thosevarieties.
But.
That's the only, in my opinion,that's the only way that your
hardiness zone comes into playwhen you're talking about
(21:04):
gardening, is when you'retalking about perennials.
If you're just talking aboutplanting annuals, for lack of a
better term, just regulargardening, beans, peppers,
tomatoes, cucumbers, those kindsof things, then your heartiness
zone doesn't matter.
What matters really, first andforemost, is knowing your last
(21:29):
average frost date, your firstaverage frost date, the amount
of days between those two andyour ambient temperatures, both
soil and air.
That's what matters.
If you don't know your last oryour first average frost date,
there's a great resource to helpyou, at least for the United
(21:52):
States.
I think it also works in Canada,and that is almanac.com.
If you go there, you put in yourzip code, and that is going to
at least help you get startednow it is very, very important
to keep in mind that there arecertain factors that.
Come into play that might notnecessarily be reflected on
(22:13):
almanac.com.
And one of those is yourmicroclimate.
So your elevation, uh, whetheror not there's bodies of water
nearby, how much tree cover youhave, all of that is going to
impact how quickly your soilwarms up your ambient air
temperatures.
(22:33):
When your last and first averagefrost dates might be.
For example, there's a lady thatI work with who would be
considered to be in the samegrowing zone, the same hardiness
zone as I am.
However, she lives at a muchhigher elevation than I do, and
so her growing season is abouttwo to three weeks behind mine.
(22:55):
Just because she lives at a bitof a higher elevation.
My brother used to live about 45minutes to an hour away from me.
Again, a bit of a higherelevation near a big body of
water, and so for them it was Ithink three to four weeks.
Behind us, even though theywould be in the same heartiness
(23:17):
zone, the same growing zone asus.
Certainly their growing seasonwas different.
Their last and first averagefrost dates were different, and
so that certainly would meanthat when he should start
things, when he should plant andwhat he could plant.
In his area would be slightlydifferent than me.
(23:39):
So does your U S D A hardinesszone matter?
Does your growing zone matter?
In my opinion, when we'retalking about annuals in your
vegetable garden, it, it doesn'tmatter one little bit whether
you're five a, five B four, whatdoesn't matter because you're
(24:00):
not planting things.
When it's going to be really,really cold, and that's the data
point that that refers to.
Hopefully you found thishelpful.
If you have any questions, reachout to me,
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net.
If you disagree with me,certainly reach out to me as
well.
You can find me on all of thesocials or again, email address
(24:22):
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net.
Before we close out the showtoday, I did wanna remind you
that we do have our freenewsletter available, so if you
haven't already signed up forthat, head on over to our
website, the homesteadjourney.net/newsletter.
To find out more to get signedup.
And one other thing, if you livein the great Northeast, we are
(24:44):
going to be holding the firstannual Southern Adirondack Home
Setting Festival, May 19ththrough the 21st here in
beautiful upstate New York.
And so if you are interested in.
Coming to that head on over tothe Homestead
journey.net/festival that willgive you more information and
(25:04):
send you in the direction ofbeing able to buy tickets.
In the last couple of weeks, wemade the decision to start
offering one day tickets.
We heard from a lot of peoplethat they could come either
Saturday, they could comeSunday, they might not be able
to make it both days, and so.
We have listened to the peopleand so we are offering a one day
(25:24):
pass for$45.
So head on over to the homesteadjourney.net/festival if that is
of interest to you.
That's it for this week's show,folks.
I hope all is well wherever youare at, and until next time,
keep up the good work.
I'm your host, Brian Wells, and I'm a fourth
generation homesteader Since2008, my family and I have been
homesteading here in beautifulupstate New York.
In 2019, I launched theHomestead Journey Podcast to
help people just like you getstarted and find success on
their journey towardsself-sufficiency, self-reliance,
(00:25):
and sustainability.
This is the Homestead journeyand this.
Is season four.
Well, hello everyone andwelcome, welcome, welcome to
another episode of the HomesteadJourney podcast.
My name is Brian Wells.
(00:46):
This is season four, and I amcoming to you from three B Farm
and Homestead here in beautifulupstate New York this is episode
155 of the Homestead JourneyPodcast, and today we are going
to be talking about gardening.
So last week we ended our serieswith regards to the
(01:09):
Mediterranean diet, and we aregoing to start a new series here
in the near future on.
Homestead as empty nestersbecause in a few short weeks,
well, Bonnie and I are going tofind ourselves in that next
phase of our lives as Brian jheads off to college.
(01:30):
We've done some episodes in thepast with regards to how to
homestead with children, but.
I've not seen a lot of contentwith regards to how to homestead
once those children leave home,and so that's gonna be a bit of
a change for us.
We're going to talk about that,but that's coming up in the
future.
Today we're going to be talkingabout whether or not your U S D
(01:54):
A hardiness zone or your growingzone as some people refer to.
It matters.
When you are planting yourvegetable garden.
But before we get there, I dowant to go ahead and bring you
up to speed with what we've beendoing here on three B Farm and
Homestead.
So let's jump on over to thisepisodes.
(02:17):
Homestead happenings.
The first thing I wanted toshare with you is the fact that
we are sending piglets off tonew homes.
We sent, uh, five more pigletsoff to new homes this week.
(02:37):
Two of them went to new buyers,and three of them actually went
to some friends of ours thatpicked up a couple of pigs last
week.
And, The great thing is thatthese loads have just been
getting easier and easier andeasier.
Watching those pigs walk rightthrough the gate, right into
(02:58):
crates and us being able to loadthem without fussing or chasing
or anything like that hascertainly been great.
I, I, I hate to say that we'vefinally got things figured out,
but maybe we do have thingsfinally figured out in, just in
time for us to, uh, get out ofpigs.
(03:20):
But certainly having them loadup easily and then head on to
their new homes without a lot ofissue.
Uh, w was certainly very, verynice.
The one family, the, the friendsof ours, they have, uh, a little
girl, and I think I mentionedthis last week, that, uh, she is
in the Sunday school class thatmy wife and I are teaching.
(03:43):
And so I, I talked to her alittle bit about them today.
She actually came down with herdad and helped pick up the pigs
on Wednesday and.
They had named the first twopigs thing one and thing two,
and so this morning I asked herin Sunday school what they had
named the pigs and the new pigs,the three little ones that they
(04:03):
picked up.
They have named bacon, porkchop, and chorizo.
So I love those names and uh,she is really enjoying the pigs.
I also got a Facebook messagefrom the other people that
bought, uh, two other pigs fromme.
They said that the pigs havesettled in very, very well, that
(04:25):
they're doing fine, and it justmakes me happy to know that my
pigs are going to good homes.
But I do have a few pigs left.
So if you are interested ingetting into American Guinea
hogs and you live anywheres nearwhere I do, reach out to me,
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net orping me on any of our social
(04:45):
media accounts.
I will make you an offer.
You cannot refuse.
So we do have two other littlepigs, left feeder pigs.
They're about a year old and oneof the other things we did this
week is actually move them fromthe pen.
Where they had been, which hadkind of gotten waterlogged and
(05:07):
soggy and moved them up to theRuth Stout bed, and they've been
up there doing some work for me.
Kind of rototilling that up anddealing with some of the weeds
that had kind of gotten a awayfrom you a little bit.
What I've been doing is takingtheir feed and sprinkling it on
the areas where I want them toreally disturb it, and that
(05:29):
seems to be working out very,very well.
So That move also went mucheasier than I had expected.
Now the Ruth Stout bed is upover the hill from where we have
been keeping the pigs, and I wasa little nervous as to how well
they would follow the bucket andwhether or not they might dart
on down the way and head on downthe driveway towards the road.
(05:53):
So I called Bonnie out to haveher, help me with this move a
little bit and.
Honestly, I didn't eat her.
The pigs just followed thatbucket right up over the hill,
right into the garden area.
And so they're doing theirthing.
They're, they're doing the workfor me and I am very, very happy
(06:14):
about that.
Once I was able to get the threelittle pigs onto their new home
bacon pork chop in there that.
Opened up some area for me to dosome work on.
Our chicken coop that I had beenneeding to do where I had them
set up was right in front of thedoor going into our chicken coop
(06:37):
and the steps.
Going into the chicken coop hadjust deteriorated and, and
really had fallen apart, and itreally was a safety issue.
In fact, my dad almost slippedand fell while he was taking
care of the animals when we wereup in Alaska.
And so I knew I needed to dosomething about it, but it was.
It was in a, in a difficult spotbecause the way I had the
(07:01):
fencing run the hog panel runfor the three little pigs.
I couldn't get in there easily,and so we got the three little
pigs gone.
I collapsed that pen and then Iwas able to take out the old
steps, level out the ground, putin some concrete block steps,
(07:21):
and so those shouldn't, rot,shouldn't fall apart, and Bonnie
definitely was much happier withthat.
Over the old dilapidated stepsthat had been falling apart and
really needed to be replaced fora while.
This week I also startedclearing out the raised beds in
(07:44):
preparation for getting thoseplanted.
Now, I had quite a bit of thingsgoing on in the evening this
week, so I wasn't able to get.
As much of that done as I wantedto, and I certainly am a bit
behind as far as where Inormally would be with regards
to having things planted.
Usually by now I'd have my peasplanted.
I'd probably have spinach andradishes and carrots, and a lot
(08:08):
of the, the cool weather cropswould already be planted.
And right now Besides my garlicthat I planted back in the fall,
I have nothing up in my raisedbeds.
But this week I did go throughand spend some time weeding
those raised beds and preparingthem for us to be able to get
things planted.
So hopefully I'll be able to getsome things in the ground,
(08:30):
although it is supposed to rainall this week.
In fact, yesterday and todayit's been rain.
It's just been miserable,overcast, not really.
That heavy rain, just thatmiserable kind of misty, just
enough to make thingsuncomfortable.
So, yeah, I, I'm probably beinga little bit of a softie here.
(08:54):
It's like, come on, man up, getout there and get it done.
But I just didn't wanna get outthere and get wet and nasty.
And so I, I haven't, but I, Imay have to do that.
If I'm gonna get things in theground and not get really,
really far behind, I, I may justhave to suck it up buttercup and
get out there because certainlythe peas aren't gonna pop up if
(09:15):
I don't get'em in the ground.
The lettuce, the, the spinachand, and all of that kind of
stuff that could be in theground, could be germinating,
could be popping up.
Not gonna pop up if I don't getit in the ground.
So we'll see how things go thisweek, but certainly.
Uh, it, it, it doesn't lookgood.
It, it does look like this weekis gonna be a bit of a washout.
(09:38):
Um, so, so we'll see.
Uh, but it did certainly feelgood to get my hand in the dirt
and to start prepping thosebeds, and I am excited to
hopefully get some seeds in theground this week and really get
(09:58):
garden.
2023 underway.
I did want to just provide youwith a bit of an update on the
seed starting system that isworking out really, really,
really well.
My tomato plants are up probablyfour inches.
Um, my peppers are up probablythree inches.
My bras are looking good.
(10:20):
In fact, one of the things thatI do need to do, That I haven't
done already is get in there andmake some difficult decisions
with regards to, you know,cutting out some of the ones
where maybe I had multiple seedssprout in the same plug.
And so definitely you, youwanna, you want to pick out
(10:41):
which one is the strongerlooking one because you don't
want the weaker one robbingresources.
From the stronger one.
And so this week I definitely doneed to get down in there and,
um, make some difficultdecisions and get things cleaned
up.
But folks, this seed startingsystem in my unheated basement.
(11:02):
Really, really working out very,very well and I'm very happy
with it.
So hopefully this coming weekwe'll really be able to get some
stuff underway.
But the weather is the weather.
My grandfather used to say,whether the weather be cold,
weather, the weather, be hot,the weather's, the weather.
No matter the weather.
Weather, we like it or not.
(11:22):
All right, let's jump on over tothis week's charting the course.
So on this week's charting thecourse, I wanted to spend a
little bit of time talking aboutU S D A, growing zones of
hardiness zones, and whether ornot they actually matter.
(11:46):
When talking about planting avegetable garden, one of the
things that I see very, veryfrequently, especially this time
of the year, is people will askquestions along these lines.
I'm in zone five, I'm in zonefive A, I'm in zone five B,
whatever it is.
Is it too early to plant beansoutside?
(12:09):
I saw somebody ask that exactquestion.
Actually, I can't remember if itwas this past week or the week
before, but recently in one ofthe groups that I'm a part of,
actually a group that I'm anadmin in, and so I replied to
that individual and I said,actually looking at the wrong
thing, I.
Your, your growing zone doesn'tmatter.
What you need to look at is whenyour last average frost date is,
(12:32):
and that's going to be a betterindicator as far as when you
should plant seeds outside.
Well, there was somebody whodisagreed with me on that, and
that's fine.
I, I certainly am not, uh, goingto say I'm always right.
I do happen to think in thisregard, uh, in this area I am
right, but this person said,Hey, I'm a horticulturalist, I'm
(12:53):
a farmer.
And the growing zone is what isimportant to look at.
Your frost.
Doesn't matter.
I, I, I'm really not quite surewhy he said that, because it
makes no sense to me.
If you understand what the U S DA hardiness zone or growing zone
is, and Canada has a verysimilar system.
(13:15):
I'm not sure outside of theUnited States and Canada how it
works.
My guess is they probably havesimilar, a similar concept, but
what that looks at is reallyonly one data point.
And the data point it looks atis.
The average coldest temperaturethat you get in your area.
(13:38):
Now, when we're talking aboutplanting a garden and we're
talking about planting annuals,how cold it gets in the middle
of the winter doesn't matter atall.
It doesn't matter.
One iotta how cold it gets inthe coldest part of the winter
because the crops that we aretalking about planting in our
(14:01):
gardens, annual crops, thingsthat we seed every year, they're
not gonna be in the ground.
During the coldest part of theyear, unless you have
specialized equipment, and we'renot talking about that, but for
the general average backyardgardener and homesteader, we are
not going to have beams in theground in January and February.
(14:25):
So the hardiness zone does notmatter.
One iotta.
What matters when it comes toplanting things like that really
is three or four.
Other data points.
First is your last averagefrosty.
Second is your first average.
(14:48):
Frosty.
Third is the amount of timebetween those dates, which we
would refer to as your growingseason.
And finally, we would look atyour ambient temperatures, both
your air temperature, as well asyour soil temperature.
are certain things that aregoing to be what we refer to as
(15:10):
cold, hearty.
So that would be things likespinach, brassicas, kale,
cabbages, things of that nature.
Carrots are cold, hardy.
Those are things that you mightbe able to plant before your
last average, frosty, becausethey can handle cooler
temperatures.
are things like your beans,tomatoes, peppers, Other things
(15:35):
like that, that they are notcold hardy, they're what we
would refer to as frostsensitive.
And so you don't want to plantthem out too soon because the
cold temperatures, if you get alittle bit of a frost, it will
kill them.
So knowing your last averagefrost date is going to be key.
(15:59):
To know when you can startplanting things outdoors and
when you can begin to direct sewthings into the ground.
In fact, many of your seedpackets.
Are going to refer to your lastaverage frosty to let you know
when you can direct so, or whenyou might want to start them
(16:23):
indoors.
So things like your tomatoes andyour peppers, they might say so
indoors four to six weeks beforeyour last average frost date.
Now knowing your first averagefrost date is also key because
that's going to let you know.
How long you can kind of pushthings, and you may have to do a
(16:47):
little bit of math to back up toknow, okay, if I sow this
particular vegetable and ittakes 85 days to reach maturity,
if my first average frost dateis, let's say October 15th, I've
gotta count back 85 days.
At least to say, okay, this iswhat it's gonna take for me to
(17:12):
be able to get a harvest,otherwise I'm just wasting space
in my garden and I'm wastingseed if I plant beyond that.
So you're not gonna wanna plantsomething and I, I don't know
what 85 days from October 15this no idea.
I've just made up that date.
But certainly I know that if Iplan it on September 15th, Uh,
(17:37):
that's a fool's errand.
It's never going to reachmaturity.
I'm never going to achieve aharvest if I plan it too late.
So knowing your first averagefrost rate is important from
that regard, and then knowingthe difference between the two,
what some people refer to asyour growing season, that's
(17:58):
going to be the number of days.
That you have available to kindof use.
And what do I mean by that?
Well, let's say there's a squashthat you want to grow, and that
squash takes 105 days to reachmaturity.
So if you only have a growingseason, that on average is 90
days.
That's probably not a squashvariety that you're going to
(18:19):
wanna try unless you have rowcovers or you have a hoop house
or something like that.
Now you may be able to start itearlier indoors and, and kind of
add on sometime, but knowingyour growing season, the length
of time between those is very,very important to know, not when
(18:44):
you should plant, but knowingwhat you should plant.
Knowing the ambient temperaturein the air and the temperature
of your soil is also going to beimportant because there are
certain things that don'tgerminate well when the soil is
cold or when the soil is wet orwhen it's not very warm outside.
(19:09):
So if you've got cool days, 40degrees, certainly above
freezing, but the seed packetsays wait till it's 60 degrees
before you plant, then you, youwanna wait till it's 60 degrees
before you plant.
If you plant at 40 degrees, yourgermination rates are going to
(19:31):
suffer.
The seed may never germinatebecause it rots in the ground,
or it just may germinate poorlybecause you jumped the gun.
So knowing your soil temperatureand the ambient air temperature
and what that seed requires isalso very, very important.
The only way that your growingzone means anything with regards
(19:57):
to gardening has to do withperennials.
So things like asparagus andrhubarb and your, your berry
bushes, so raspberries,blueberries, you know, currents,
fruit trees like apples andpeaches and pears and so on and
so forth.
Citrus, another good examplethat is when you need to take
(20:19):
into consideration yourheartiness zone because there
are certain varieties that aregoing to do well.
When it gets very cold, there'scertain varieties that actually
need it to get cold in order forthem to be able to produce
properly.
And then there are othervarieties that cannot handle the
cold at all.
(20:40):
And you're lucky if they survivethrough the winter, but even if
they do survive through thewinter, they're not going to
produce.
And so again, it ends up being awaste of space and a waste of
money for you to plant thosevarieties.
But.
That's the only, in my opinion,that's the only way that your
hardiness zone comes into playwhen you're talking about
(21:04):
gardening, is when you'retalking about perennials.
If you're just talking aboutplanting annuals, for lack of a
better term, just regulargardening, beans, peppers,
tomatoes, cucumbers, those kindsof things, then your heartiness
zone doesn't matter.
What matters really, first andforemost, is knowing your last
(21:29):
average frost date, your firstaverage frost date, the amount
of days between those two andyour ambient temperatures, both
soil and air.
That's what matters.
If you don't know your last oryour first average frost date,
there's a great resource to helpyou, at least for the United
(21:52):
States.
I think it also works in Canada,and that is almanac.com.
If you go there, you put in yourzip code, and that is going to
at least help you get startednow it is very, very important
to keep in mind that there arecertain factors that.
Come into play that might notnecessarily be reflected on
(22:13):
almanac.com.
And one of those is yourmicroclimate.
So your elevation, uh, whetheror not there's bodies of water
nearby, how much tree cover youhave, all of that is going to
impact how quickly your soilwarms up your ambient air
temperatures.
(22:33):
When your last and first averagefrost dates might be.
For example, there's a lady thatI work with who would be
considered to be in the samegrowing zone, the same hardiness
zone as I am.
However, she lives at a muchhigher elevation than I do, and
so her growing season is abouttwo to three weeks behind mine.
(22:55):
Just because she lives at a bitof a higher elevation.
My brother used to live about 45minutes to an hour away from me.
Again, a bit of a higherelevation near a big body of
water, and so for them it was Ithink three to four weeks.
Behind us, even though theywould be in the same heartiness
(23:17):
zone, the same growing zone asus.
Certainly their growing seasonwas different.
Their last and first averagefrost dates were different, and
so that certainly would meanthat when he should start
things, when he should plant andwhat he could plant.
In his area would be slightlydifferent than me.
(23:39):
So does your U S D A hardinesszone matter?
Does your growing zone matter?
In my opinion, when we'retalking about annuals in your
vegetable garden, it, it doesn'tmatter one little bit whether
you're five a, five B four, whatdoesn't matter because you're
(24:00):
not planting things.
When it's going to be really,really cold, and that's the data
point that that refers to.
Hopefully you found thishelpful.
If you have any questions, reachout to me,
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net.
If you disagree with me,certainly reach out to me as
well.
You can find me on all of thesocials or again, email address
(24:22):
brian@thehomesteadjourney.net.
Before we close out the showtoday, I did wanna remind you
that we do have our freenewsletter available, so if you
haven't already signed up forthat, head on over to our
website, the homesteadjourney.net/newsletter.
To find out more to get signedup.
And one other thing, if you livein the great Northeast, we are
(24:44):
going to be holding the firstannual Southern Adirondack Home
Setting Festival, May 19ththrough the 21st here in
beautiful upstate New York.
And so if you are interested in.
Coming to that head on over tothe Homestead
journey.net/festival that willgive you more information and
(25:04):
send you in the direction ofbeing able to buy tickets.
In the last couple of weeks, wemade the decision to start
offering one day tickets.
We heard from a lot of peoplethat they could come either
Saturday, they could comeSunday, they might not be able
to make it both days, and so.
We have listened to the peopleand so we are offering a one day
(25:24):
pass for$45.
So head on over to the homesteadjourney.net/festival if that is
of interest to you.
That's it for this week's show,folks.
I hope all is well wherever youare at, and until next time,
keep up the good work.
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