Planting the In Ground: To Garden or Not to Garden

 I'm facing the dilemma I do every year at this time, to plant my garden or wait. The nights no longer fall below freezing, but the daytime highs are still low. I planted potatoes and carrots, and it snowed. I started seeds are the temperature plummeted to highs in the forties for a week. The days warm up to the 60's one week and then we get another artic blast come through. The weather has been predictably unpredictable.

I looked into buying heat mats to go under my transplant trays. Bot, they want a pretty penny for them, don't they? I'd need at least five for my lettuces and brassicas alone not to mention the electricity to run them. There's also no guarantee that they'd last over a year of seed starting. 

Grow lights are a different story. It's just a question of replacing tubes as they burn out. Not that those are cheap, but they seldom go out all at once either. In my experience one or two out of twenty-four bulbs will burn out a season and the starters will be replaced about every three years or so. So I get a whole lot of bang for my buck. But the warming mats, it's all enclosed so if a wire inside breaks there's no way to fix it short of cutting it open and try gluing or taping it back together ruining the waterproof nature of the product. Water and electricity shouldn't be mixed, right? Not without at a minimum of tripping the circuit breaker, nasty shocks, never working properly,  or causing a fire.  So, it's basically trash and there foes money down the drain. 

I have a healthy respect for electricity. This was reinforced by an incident I experienced as a young teen. I was helping the servants buff the terrazzo floors. I grabbed the power cord to move it out of the way as I buffed. Unknown to me, there was a break in the cord and the protective wire coating had worn off from I assume was running over the cord while buffing the floors. All 240 volts shot into my hand. My fingers tightened around the cord and I couldn't let go (darn reflexes). When I finally let go, my index  through the ring fingers  were burned almost down to the bone along the first joints. I was lucky. I could have died. To this day, I have minimal use of those three fingers because of the scars. It's a permanent reminder of how dangerous electricity can be even with the US's dialed down 110. 

I think I'll err with caution and wait until the end of March or April before I plant outdoors.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo