Скачать или смотреть Be careful if you plant before Mother's Day

The warm weather lately might have some thinking about planting a vegetable garden or putting in some May flowers, but will the weather stay nice?

The average final freeze in Denver is May 5. But that’s not the best date to use when deciding if it’s safe to plant sensitive veggies and flowers, because that really means about half of the freezes happen after that date.

That’s where the Mother’s Day Rule comes in. On the Front Range we often say wait until after Mother’s Day to plant.

Last year, we got bit by that rule – there was a freeze on May 20-21. But how often does that really happen?

Well, Mother’s Day is not always on the same date, so let’s use this year’s date May 14 for a case study.

Over the last 10 years, there has been a freeze on or after May 14 three times – 30% of the time.

But that's a short window of data, so over the last 75 years at the Denver Central Park weather station, there’s been 16 freezes on or after May 14 – about 21% of the time.

That’s a frost about once every four to five years. Tomatoes probably don’t like those odds.