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Mid-Atlantic Gardening

Let's talk last frost dates

17 years ago

This is my first year with any sort of garden. I'm having a great success with peppers. After cutting back the jalapenos, the bells took off and have a ton of blossoms and small peppers. I don't want it to end and will be building some row covers to protect them.

But how long do I have? I'm located near Baltimore. I'm seeing first frost dates between October 11 and October 29. Quite the spread.

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Comments (2)

fritz_monroe
Original Author
17 years ago
Obviously I meant first frost dates, not last. Sorry about that.
annebert
17 years ago
There is a difference between the first frost and the first killing frost. While you might get a night or two where the temperature falls to 30 degrees or so, if you have your pepper plants covered, they'll survive that. I think it will be close to mid-November before you get a night-time temperature of 25 degrees or so, which will probably do them in.

Remember, though, that the days are getting shorter and the sun is slipping to the south,so the peppers will be slowing way down in their growth. You might want to cut off all blooms from now on, so they'll focus their energy on the small peppers that have already formed.
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