SALEM, Va. – Spring is here, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right time to start planting everything in your garden.
“I would hold off on annual flowers like petunias or geraniums,” said Sales Works Mark Burton with Pine Ridge Nursery.
If you have fruit trees in your garden that are starting to bloom, Burton said there are several things you can do to protect them, especially with potential frost.
“You can drag your water hose out before the sun comes up and wash the frost off. You could always, if you have smaller trees like this, you could always cover them with a blanket or a sheet,” said Burton.
Burton also spoke with 10 News about how they can protect their trees if they are starting to bloom as well.
“It’s going to be many of the same ways, such as this tree is a native tree, is a serviceberry. The cold weather we had the other night didn’t bother it a bit. Many ornamental trees, dogwoods, serviceberry, redbuds here, are able to withstand somewhat low temperatures to maybe even as low as 28 before any damage occurs,” said Burton.
If you have other green things in your garden right now, you can also take a five-gallon bucket and put it on top of them.
Burton said this will work for tomato or squash plants. You can use it for annual flowers as well.
“Take it off as the sun and temperature are rising. If you leave it on too long, it’s like a greenhouse and can cause great temperatures to increase and damage your flower as well,” said Burton.
Meanwhile, Extension Agent Shawn Jadrnicek with Virginia Cooperative Extension said that if you have cool-season crops like broccoli or kale they can tolerate some freeze.
Jadrnicek said that you’ll want to hold off on planting warm-season crops like peppers or tomatoes. However, if you have plated them, you can protect them with a row cover.
“Another thing that’s helpful is these black plastic heats the soil up and this will give you 1 to 2 degrees of protection. This row cover, it’s a light grade, 1.5 ounces per yard. You can drape this over your plants, and this’ll give you about 2 to 4 degrees of protection, you can get thicker row covers that will give you even more protection than that,” said Jadrnicek.
Jadrnicek also said people should use a planting calendar, which will help them figure out when is the best time to plant and harvest vegetables based on frost dates.
“The most important thing, according to the scientific planting calendar,” said Jadrnicek.
