Here's When Oak Creek Can Expect Last Frost: Planting A Garden

OAK CREEK, WI — A new crop of gardeners in Oak Creek is looking to homegrown produce, not only for its nutritional benefits, but also for its fight against inflation and the rising cost of food.

If you're one of the many people in Oak Creek and Wisconsin looking to kickstart your 2022 garden, one essential date to know is when you can expect the last frost to pass.

So when does the danger of frost pass in Oak Creek? About April, 30, 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 163 days long in Oak Creek. Looking ahead to fall, the first frost usually occurs around Oct. 11.

According to the publication, there’s a 30 percent probability of a frost occurring after April 30, 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.

April 30 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 in Oak Creek, The Old Farmer's Almanac has another tool to help gardeners decide when to plant which crops.

In Oak Creek, it’s usually best to start planting seeds for corn as early as April 30, potatoes on April 23 and spinach seeds on March 19.

If you're sowing seeds indoors to later transplant to the ground, the date to start doing that is definitely approaching for many seeds. As for direct planting seeds, or transplanting those seedlings, the dates vary.

Here’s a look at other crops, and when the Old Farmer’s Almanac says to begin planting them in Oak Creek:

• Basil seedlings: April 30.
• Bell peppers: May 7.
• Carrots: March 26.
• Eggplants: May 14.
• Lettuce: April 16.
• Swiss chard: April 9.

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.