Weekend Gardener Your Weekly Electronic Gardening Guide
Practical Horticulture for Busy People.

Frost Dates
What are frost dates?
Frost dates, or the last spring frost and first fall frost, determine when you should sow seeds or set out transplants. Some plants, like pansies and broccoli, can shrug off light frosts, but other plants, like tomatoes and marigolds, need warmer conditions. You need to know the frost dates in your area so you know when is the proper time to sow seeds or set out transplants in your garden. The time you do these activities will depend upon these dates.

How do I determine what my frost dates are?
You can find out in two ways: (1) Ask a gardening neighbor the dates he or she uses. (2) Call your Cooperative Extension agent (look up the number in the county government pages in your phone book - each county in the U.S. has an office). An agricultural agent or a master gardener there should be able to help you.

How do I use my frost dates to know when to start my seeds?
Traditionally, charts, calendars, and date arithmetic have been used for determining the starting times for seeds and for safe transplanting times. Weekend Gardener uses a different approach. Each week, in GrowGuide Online, we provide you with tables tailored to your frost dates that tell you what you should be sowing or transplanting. In the Spring GrowGuide, for instance, click on the date range that's closest to your last spring frost date, and you'll see your table for the week.

I want to have a fall garden, but how do I know when to start my seeds for them? The books and charts I use mostly tell me when to start seeds in the spring. And I'm so busy in the middle of summer that I forget to look at them.
Use Weekend Gardener's Fall GrowGuide to help you plan your fall garden. See the GrowGuide Instructions for all the details. We won't let you forget.

Viewing, Saving, and Printing Files
How do I print out or save the GrowGuides?
Your web browser has the capability of printing files. In Netscape Navigator and in Microsoft Internet Explorer, choose Print from the File menu, or click on the Print icon on the toolbar in either browser.

You can also save the GrowGuides in a file on your computer by choosing Save As from the File menu. You can save the file as Source (with a .htm or .html file extension) or as text (with a .txt file extension). By saving the file as html, you can use your browser offline (not connected to the internet) to read it. However, any images in these files will not appear unless you are online (see below.) By saving the file as text, you can use a word processing program or editor to read the files offline.

I saved a file as an html file and used my browser offline to read it, but there were no pictures (images) in it. Why not?
Images are kept in separate files from the original html file. The images appear when you use your browser while online, but if you save an html file to your own machine, the only part of the file you are actually saving is the text.

There are offline web browsers available that will allow you to see the images, even though you are not online.

The GrowGuide tables look funny online. What's wrong?
Your web browser probably cannot display tables properly. You have two choices: (1) Use the alternative format given beneath each GrowGuide table. (2) Upgrade your browser to one that can handle tables. Two popular web browsers you can try are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I saved a GrowGuide table as a text file (with a .txt file extension) and opened it with my web browser. I know my browser supports tables, but it still looks funny.
If you'd like to read the GrowGuide tables offline and still want to use your web browser to look at them, save the GrowGuides with a .htm or .html extension.




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