S4E154 Does Your USDA Hardiness Zone Matter When Planting A Garden?

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

Transcript

Brian: 0:03

I'm your host, Brian Wells, and I'm a fourth generation homesteader Since 2008, my family and I have been homesteading here in beautiful upstate New York. In 2019, I launched the Homestead Journey Podcast to help people just like you get started and find success on their journey towards self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and sustainability. This is the Homestead journey and this. Is season four. Well, hello everyone and welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Homestead Journey podcast. My name is Brian Wells. This is season four, and I am coming to you from three B Farm and Homestead here in beautiful upstate New York this is episode 155 of the Homestead Journey Podcast, and today we are going to be talking about gardening. So last week we ended our series with regards to the Mediterranean diet, and we are going to start a new series here in the near future on. Homestead as empty nesters because in a few short weeks, well, Bonnie and I are going to find ourselves in that next phase of our lives as Brian j heads off to college. We've done some episodes in the past with regards to how to homestead with children, but. I've not seen a lot of content with 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 talking about whether or not your U S D A hardiness zone or your growing zone as some people refer to. It matters. When you are planting your vegetable garden. But before we get there, I do want to go ahead and bring you up to speed with what we've been doing here on three B Farm and Homestead. So let's jump on over to this episodes. Homestead happenings. The first thing I wanted to share with you is the fact that we are sending piglets off to new homes. We sent, uh, five more piglets off to new homes this week. Two of them went to new buyers, and three of them actually went to some friends of ours that picked up a couple of pigs last week. And, The great thing is that these loads have just been getting easier and easier and easier. Watching those pigs walk right through the gate, right into crates and us being able to load them without fussing or chasing or anything like that has certainly been great. I, I, I hate to say that we've finally got things figured out, but maybe we do have things finally figured out in, just in time for us to, uh, get out of pigs. But certainly having them load up easily and then head on to their new homes without a lot of issue. Uh, w was certainly very, very nice. The one family, the, the friends of ours, they have, uh, a little girl, and I think I mentioned this last week, that, uh, she is in the Sunday school class that my wife and I are teaching. And so I, I talked to her a little bit about them today. She actually came down with her dad and helped pick up the pigs on Wednesday and. They had named the first two pigs thing one and thing two, and so this morning I asked her in Sunday school what they had named the pigs and the new pigs, the three little ones that they picked up. They have named bacon, pork chop, and chorizo. So I love those names and uh, she is really enjoying the pigs. I also got a Facebook message from the other people that bought, uh, two other pigs from me. They said that the pigs have settled in very, very well, that they're doing fine, and it just makes 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 in getting into American Guinea hogs and you live anywheres near where I do, reach out to me, brian@thehomesteadjourney.net or ping me on any of our social media accounts. I will make you an offer. You cannot refuse. So we do have two other little pigs, left feeder pigs. They're about a year old and one of the other things we did this week is actually move them from the pen. Where they had been, which had kind of gotten waterlogged and soggy and moved them up to the Ruth Stout bed, and they've been up there doing some work for me. Kind of rototilling that up and dealing with some of the weeds that had kind of gotten a away from you a little bit. What I've been doing is taking their feed and sprinkling it on the areas where I want them to really disturb it, and that seems to be working out very, very well. So That move also went much easier than I had expected. Now the Ruth Stout bed is up over the hill from where we have been keeping the pigs, and I was a little nervous as to how well they would follow the bucket and whether or not they might dart on down the way and head on down the driveway towards the road. So I called Bonnie out to have her, help me with this move a little bit and. Honestly, I didn't eat her. The pigs just followed that bucket right up over the hill, right into the garden area. And so they're doing their thing. They're, they're doing the work for me and I am very, very happy about that. Once I was able to get the three little pigs onto their new home bacon pork chop in there that. Opened up some area for me to do some work on. Our chicken coop that I had been needing to do where I had them set up was right in front of the door going into our chicken coop and the steps. Going into the chicken coop had just deteriorated and, and really had fallen apart, and it really was a safety issue. In fact, my dad almost slipped and fell while he was taking care of the animals when we were up in Alaska. And so I knew I needed to do something about it, but it was. It was in a, in a difficult spot because the way I had the fencing run the hog panel run for 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 I was able to take out the old steps, level out the ground, put in some concrete block steps, and so those shouldn't, rot, shouldn't fall apart, and Bonnie definitely was much happier with that. Over the old dilapidated steps that had been falling apart and really needed to be replaced for a while. This week I also started clearing out the raised beds in preparation for getting those planted. Now, I had quite a bit of things going on in the evening this week, so I wasn't able to get. As much of that done as I wanted to, and I certainly am a bit behind as far as where I normally would be with regards to having things planted. Usually by now I'd have my peas planted. I'd probably have spinach and radishes and carrots, and a lot of the, the cool weather crops would already be planted. And right now Besides my garlic that I planted back in the fall, I have nothing up in my raised beds. But this week I did go through and spend some time weeding those raised beds and preparing them for us to be able to get things planted. So hopefully I'll be able to get some things in the ground, although it is supposed to rain all this week. In fact, yesterday and today it's been rain. It's just been miserable, overcast, not really. That heavy rain, just that miserable kind of misty, just enough to make things uncomfortable. So, yeah, I, I'm probably being a little bit of a softie here. It's like, come on, man up, get out there and get it done. But I just didn't wanna get out there and get wet and nasty. And so I, I haven't, but I, I may have to do that. If I'm gonna get things in the ground and not get really, really far behind, I, I may just have to suck it up buttercup and get out there because certainly the peas aren't gonna pop up if I don't get'em in the ground. The lettuce, the, the spinach and, and all of that kind of stuff that could be in the ground, could be germinating, could be popping up. Not gonna pop up if I don't get it in the ground. So we'll see how things go this week, but certainly. Uh, it, it, it doesn't look good. It, it does look like this week is gonna be a bit of a washout. Um, so, so we'll see. Uh, but it did certainly feel good to get my hand in the dirt and to start prepping those beds, and I am excited to hopefully get some seeds in the ground this week and really get garden. 2023 underway. I did want to just provide you with a bit of an update on the seed starting system that is working out really, really, really well. My tomato plants are up probably four inches. Um, my peppers are up probably three inches. My bras are looking good. In fact, one of the things that I do need to do, That I haven't done already is get in there and make some difficult decisions with regards to, you know, cutting out some of the ones where maybe I had multiple seeds sprout in the same plug. And so definitely you, you wanna, you want to pick out which one is the stronger looking one because you don't want the weaker one robbing resources. From the stronger one. And so this week I definitely do need to get down in there and, um, make some difficult decisions and get things cleaned up. But folks, this seed starting system in my unheated basement. Really, really working out very, very well and I'm very happy with it. So hopefully this coming week we'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. All right, let's jump on over to this week's charting the course. So on this week's charting the course, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about U S D A, growing zones of hardiness zones, and whether or not they actually matter. When talking about planting a vegetable garden, one of the things that I see very, very frequently, especially this time of the year, is people will ask questions along these lines. I'm in zone five, I'm in zone five A, I'm in zone five B, whatever it is. Is it too early to plant beans outside? I saw somebody ask that exact question. Actually, I can't remember if it was this past week or the week before, but recently in one of the groups that I'm a part of, actually a group that I'm an admin in, and so I replied to that individual and I said, actually looking at the wrong thing, I. Your, your growing zone doesn't matter. What you need to look at is when your last average frost date is, and that's going to be a better indicator as far as when you should plant seeds outside. Well, there was somebody who disagreed with me on that, and that's fine. I, I certainly am not, uh, going to say I'm always right. I do happen to think in this regard, uh, in this area I am right, but this person said, Hey, I'm a horticulturalist, I'm a farmer. And the growing zone is what is important to look at. Your frost. Doesn't matter. I, I, I'm really not quite sure why he said that, because it makes no sense to me. If you understand what the U S D A hardiness zone or growing zone is, and Canada has a very similar system. I'm not sure outside of the United States and Canada how it works. My guess is they probably have similar, a similar concept, but what that looks at is really only one data point. And the data point it looks at is. The average coldest temperature that you get in your area. Now, when we're talking about planting a garden and we're talking about planting annuals, how cold it gets in the middle of the winter doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter. One iotta how cold it gets in the coldest part of the winter because the crops that we are talking about planting in our gardens, annual crops, things that we seed every year, they're not gonna be in the ground. During the coldest part of the year, unless you have specialized equipment, and we're not talking about that, but for the general average backyard gardener and homesteader, we are not going to have beams in the ground in January and February. So the hardiness zone does not matter. One iotta. What matters when it comes to planting things like that really is three or four. Other data points. First is your last average frosty. Second is your first average. Frosty. Third is the amount of time between those dates, which we would refer to as your growing season. And finally, we would look at your ambient temperatures, both your air temperature, as well as your soil temperature. are certain things that are going to be what we refer to as cold, hearty. So that would be things like spinach, brassicas, kale, cabbages, things of that nature. Carrots are cold, hardy. Those are things that you might be able to plant before your last average, frosty, because they can handle cooler temperatures. are things like your beans, tomatoes, peppers, Other things like that, that they are not cold hardy, they're what we would refer to as frost sensitive. And so you don't want to plant them out too soon because the cold temperatures, if you get a little bit of a frost, it will kill them. So knowing your last average frost date is going to be key. To know when you can start planting things outdoors and when you can begin to direct sew things into the ground. In fact, many of your seed packets. Are going to refer to your last average frosty to let you know when you can direct so, or when you might want to start them indoors. So things like your tomatoes and your peppers, they might say so indoors four to six weeks before your last average frost date. Now knowing your first average frost date is also key because that's going to let you know. How long you can kind of push things, and you may have to do a little bit of math to back up to know, okay, if I sow this particular vegetable and it takes 85 days to reach maturity, if my first average frost date is, let's say October 15th, I've gotta count back 85 days. At least to say, okay, this is what it's gonna take for me to be able to get a harvest, otherwise I'm just wasting space in my garden and I'm wasting seed if I plant beyond that. So you're not gonna wanna plant something and I, I don't know what 85 days from October 15th is no idea. I've just made up that date. But certainly I know that if I plan it on September 15th, Uh, that's a fool's errand. It's never going to reach maturity. I'm never going to achieve a harvest if I plan it too late. So knowing your first average frost rate is important from that regard, and then knowing the difference between the two, what some people refer to as your growing season, that's going to be the number of days. That you have available to kind of use. And what do I mean by that? Well, let's say there's a squash that you want to grow, and that squash takes 105 days to reach maturity. So if you only have a growing season, that on average is 90 days. That's probably not a squash variety that you're going to wanna try unless you have row covers or you have a hoop house or something like that. Now you may be able to start it earlier indoors and, and kind of add on sometime, but knowing your growing season, the length of time between those is very, very important to know, not when you should plant, but knowing what you should plant. Knowing the ambient temperature in the air and the temperature of your soil is also going to be important because there are certain things that don't germinate well when the soil is cold or when the soil is wet or when it's not very warm outside. So if you've got cool days, 40 degrees, certainly above freezing, but the seed packet says wait till it's 60 degrees before you plant, then you, you wanna wait till it's 60 degrees before you plant. If you plant at 40 degrees, your germination rates are going to suffer. The seed may never germinate because it rots in the ground, or it just may germinate poorly because you jumped the gun. So knowing your soil temperature and the ambient air temperature and what that seed requires is also very, very important. The only way that your growing zone means anything with regards to gardening has to do with perennials. So things like asparagus and rhubarb and your, your berry bushes, so raspberries, blueberries, you know, currents, fruit trees like apples and peaches and pears and so on and so forth. Citrus, another good example that is when you need to take into consideration your heartiness zone because there are certain varieties that are going to do well. When it gets very cold, there's certain varieties that actually need it to get cold in order for them to be able to produce properly. And then there are other varieties that cannot handle the cold at all. And you're lucky if they survive through the winter, but even if they do survive through the winter, they're not going to produce. And so again, it ends up being a waste of space and a waste of money for you to plant those varieties. But. That's the only, in my opinion, that's the only way that your hardiness zone comes into play when you're talking about gardening, is when you're talking about perennials. If you're just talking about planting annuals, for lack of a better term, just regular gardening, beans, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, those kinds of things, then your heartiness zone doesn't matter. What matters really, first and foremost, is knowing your last average frost date, your first average frost date, the amount of days between those two and your ambient temperatures, both soil and air. That's what matters. If you don't know your last or your first average frost date, there's a great resource to help you, at least for the United States. I think it also works in Canada, and that is almanac.com. If you go there, you put in your zip code, and that is going to at least help you get started now it is very, very important to keep in mind that there are certain factors that. Come into play that might not necessarily be reflected on almanac.com. And one of those is your microclimate. So your elevation, uh, whether or not there's bodies of water nearby, how much tree cover you have, all of that is going to impact how quickly your soil warms up your ambient air temperatures. When your last and first average frost dates might be. For example, there's a lady that I work with who would be considered to be in the same growing zone, the same hardiness zone as I am. However, she lives at a much higher elevation than I do, and so her growing season is about two to three weeks behind mine. Just because she lives at a bit of a higher elevation. My brother used to live about 45 minutes to an hour away from me. Again, a bit of a higher elevation near a big body of water, and so for them it was I think three to four weeks. Behind us, even though they would be in the same heartiness zone, the same growing zone as us. Certainly their growing season was different. Their last and first average frost dates were different, and so that certainly would mean that when he should start things, when he should plant and what he could plant. In his area would be slightly different than me. So does your U S D A hardiness zone matter? Does your growing zone matter? In my opinion, when we're talking about annuals in your vegetable garden, it, it doesn't matter one little bit whether you're five a, five B four, what doesn't matter because you're 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 this helpful. If you have any questions, reach out to me, brian@thehomesteadjourney.net. If you disagree with me, certainly reach out to me as well. You can find me on all of the socials or again, email address brian@thehomesteadjourney.net. Before we close out the show today, I did wanna remind you that we do have our free newsletter available, so if you haven't already signed up for that, head on over to our website, the homestead journey.net/newsletter. To find out more to get signed up. And one other thing, if you live in the great Northeast, we are going to be holding the first annual Southern Adirondack Home Setting Festival, May 19th through the 21st here in beautiful upstate New York. And so if you are interested in. Coming to that head on over to the Homestead journey.net/festival that will give you more information and send you in the direction of being able to buy tickets. In the last couple of weeks, we made the decision to start offering one day tickets. We heard from a lot of people that they could come either Saturday, they could come Sunday, they might not be able to make it both days, and so. We have listened to the people and so we are offering a one day pass for$45. So head on over to the homestead journey.net/festival if that is of interest to you. That's it for this week's show, folks. I hope all is well wherever you are at, and until next time, keep up the good work.