Last Frost: When Is It Time To Plant A Garden In Hackettstown?

HACKETTSTOWN, NJ — Inflation, the rising cost of food, and the nutritional benefits of homegrown produce have cultivated a new crop of home gardeners around Hackettstown.

Whether you're a first-time or experienced gardener, one of the most important dates you need to know as you think about your garden this spring is:

When does the danger of frost pass in the Hackettstown area? It’s May 4, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, which offers a ZIP code tool to help gardeners figure out when to plant what.

The growing season is 154 days long around Warren County. Looking ahead to fall, the first frost usually occurs around Oct. 6.

According to the publication, there's a 30 percent probability of a frost occurring after May 4, as the date is determined using National Oceanic and Atmospheric historical data from 1981-2010, and is not "set in stone," The Old Farmer's Almanac said. After all, it's the weather.

May 4 represents the average date of the final "light freeze," which occurs when the temperature dips between 29 and 32 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, tender plants can be killed.

A "moderate freeze," between 25 and 28 degrees, is destructive to most plants; and a "severe freeze," at anything under 24 degrees, can do heavy damage to most garden plants, according to the almanac.

As the pandemic's third gardening season gets underway around Hackettstown, The Old Farmer's Almanac has another tool to help gardeners decide when to plant which crops.

In the Hackettstown area, it's usually best to start planting corn between May 4 and May 18, potatoes between April 27 and May 18. Spinach can be planted between March 23 and April 13.

Onions can be planted April 6-20 and parsley April 6-27. Carrot seeds can go in the ground between March 30-April 13. Hold off on planting green beans until May 11-June 1. The almanac recommends starting tomatoes, watermelons, and zucchini indoors.

Gardening Can Be Stress Relief

Even before the pandemic, mental health experts pointed to gardening as a way to deal with stress.

Gardening provides physical exercise and promotes healthier eating, but it can also reduce worry among people who consider themselves perfectionists, psychologist Seth Gillihan said.

"Given the lack of control we have, gardening can be a good antidote for perfectionism," Gillihan wrote in a 2019 Psychology Today blog. "No matter how carefully you plan and execute your garden, there are countless factors you can't predict — invasions by bugs, inclement weather, hungry rodents."

With so many things out of their control, perfectionism is a waste of time, he said, so gardeners may ask themselves "why bother" trying to be perfect?

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