Experienced gardeners have a great respect for the freeze dates when planning their gardens. We take them into consideration for starting seedlings as well as planning when to sow seeds or plant outside in the garden. Colorado, in particular, has a shorter and more intense growing season than other places in the country due to the high elevation and freeze events. If we try to plant out tender vegetables before the last freeze, they may become stunted or we may end up having to replace them. If we wait to harvest late in the fall, and there is a freeze, the harvest may not be suitable for storage.

Of course the tricky thing is to know when that last freeze or first freeze date might be. The weather services help, but are not always perfect. We can work with temperature averages, but this is also imperfect and it almost always boils down to probabilities in those last few days. Do you feel comfortable with a 60% probability? or 80%?

May and October are certainly busy, sometimes stressful times in our gardens! Being mindful of freeze dates can help to make it go smoother.