Last Frost?

A few years back there was a heavy frost at my plot at the beginning of June that killed all the tomato plants the other side of the boarding in coldframes. Luckily I was a bit behind and hadn't planted the lot out.

Things like that get obscured by average dates. I never plant out more stuff before the 1st of June than I can cover up if required with my vast collection of net curtains, old sheets, etc.

 

Yeah, I tend to plan for the start of June, unless I'm confident that there's no risk of frost.

 

I'd say the average is around Mid May for our part of the country Kayleigh.
Having said that, about once every three or four years we get a late frost sometime around the end of May, so like Scrungee says, until June it's best to only put out stuff which you know you can cover up at night.

 

I live in what they call a frost pocket so I think we could get frost here up to the first week in June. (North Warwickshire)

 

Ok thank you everyone you have been a great help .. As always :D

 

Not sure "average" serves a purpose? (But maybe I'm anticipating the wrong sense of the question?)

Need to be prepared for a late frost. Often weather is good during April / May, but that can be followed by a late frost. Many things can be protected from a late frost, for example with Fleece, because the nights are short and temperatures soon rise in the morning, so the time the plant needs to be protected is actually quite short.

For your particular area you could use wunderground.com - it is a bit time consuming because, for each amateur weather station near you, you need to step back through April/May (and maybe March in a good year) to see how many frost nights occurred, going back each year, to form a "view". I don't know if there is an APP that uses wunderground.com to show how many nights, for each month, and each historical year, had MINs of 0C, 1C, 2C etc - but that would be handy for us gardeners.

But, either way, if you know that you only get a frost in May (say) 1 year in 10 ... then you still have to protect plants on the rare occasions when it comes around in the calendar :(

 

This link might help;


http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Frost zones/Frost Zones.htm

 

Apparently mine's the first week of May... But I'm ready now...