Planning to plant? Expert shares gardening tips, best time start

MILAN, Tenn. — Is spring fever hitting you hard? Maybe you feel the need to start a garden?

If you feel the need to start your garden on the first day of spring, you may want to hold off on outdoor planting for a while. It is still possible to see a frost or freeze in West Tennessee as late as early May. The record for latest spring freeze was set on May 9, 2020, with the average being April 9.

We have some gardening tips from the owner of Greenway Nursery, Chris Williams.

“For a garden, you just wanna be sure you’ve got really rich, fertile soil and have it worked up good before you plant in it. You can do cabbage, onions, and lettuce and all that stuff now, but for things like tomato plants and all that, you need to wait until at least the middle or even better the end of April, where there’s not as much chance of a frost,” said Williams.

Williams suggests holding off on planting any flowers outside until late April to mid-May to avoid an unusually late frost. You can protect your outdoor plants by covering them or spraying them with water before sunrise to rinse the frost off.

Frost will not occur if it is either windy or cloudy. We also asked about his recommendation for fertilizing the soil.

“People use six twelve twelve and triple fifteen. The triple 15 you gotta be careful with. If you use too much it’ll burn some things up so sometimes it’s safer doing six twelve twelve and there’s some other ones too but that’s the most popular ones,” said Williams.

Also make sure you don’t have any underground pests like moles. Growing season runs from April to early November here in West Tennessee.

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