Maine Gardeners: Put These Fall Dates on Your Calendar Now

I won't lie, my thumb is anything but green.

I'm not in charge of anything to do with the plants in our house. I'm relatively sure I could kill a fake plant. As opposed to a friend of mine that watered a fake plant in the office forever. Give me a living plant in a pot, and I will eventually return an empty pot and tell you where I threw the dead plant away.

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But some folks just have the gift. They could grow anything. My wife seems to have this ability. Except for pumpkins. She had no luck there, but it was probably nature's fault. Anyhoo, I know enough about gardening to know that frost is one of the main things you're watching out for, at the beginning and the end of the season.

The cold weather is a-comin'...

That doesn't take a meteorologist to figure out, but predicting when that first fall frost will hit is important info if you're trying to grow certain plants and veggies. While I know there are plenty of people who play it safe and take care of things well before frost, some people like to play it a bit more risky.

Luckily, there are plenty of resources that will share their predictions with you, such as the The Old Farmer's Almanac, and others. All of them will kind of point to the same time period, the first week or so of October. Some will even indicate that the end of September is when you need to start looking out, but they may depend on location.

Why is frost a big deal to plants?

Well, frost is formed when water vapor in the air settles on surfaces that are below 32 degrees. So if you have plant leaves that fit that bill, that thin layer if iciness will bring the temperature of the plant much lower than it may want to go. It will also signal it's end-of-life change, for some plants.

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But your tomatoes, or any unpicked greens and such, could take quite a beating in the frost. I know you probably know it already. Most folks learn the hard way. I learn by watching others. Which means I've learned to not grow plants. I let the pros do it. However, I'll take some of those tomatoes if you have too many. Just sayin'.

When these are frosted, it's even better...