Waiting Until After Easter to Plant

 Why This Benchmark Belongs in the Compost Pile

📝 Opinion | by Guy Saldiveri | Updated: March 11, 2026

This is another opinion that will probably ruffle a few leaves. That’s not the goal. My goal—as always—is to give you the most accurate and reliable information I can, even when it bumps up against tradition.

 

I've said before: I don’t sow seeds or set out starts in February. I usually treat February and March as cleanup months: clearing beds, prepping soil, getting everything ready for the year. And most years, I stick to that. The times I don’t? Those are the times when science says it’s safe to take the chance.

I don’t follow folklore.

I don’t follow “grandma said.”

And I definitely don’t follow the Farmer's Almanac, which—let’s be honest—is just folklore with better marketing.

What do I use? Let's take a closer look.

It's not Easter, and it's not Good Friday. It's not any holiday or tradition that has absolutely nothing to do with meteorology. I use local weather patterns and solid 10‑day forecasts from trusted sources.

Why Easter Is a Terrible Benchmark

Easter is based on a specific astronomical formula: it’s the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the church‑defined date of the vernal equinox (March 21).

That crazy, convoluted definition is based on astronomical—NOT meteorological—guidelines. And it means Easter can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25.

Read that again:

• March 22 to April 25

• A full five‑week window

And that five‑week window straddles the end of winter and the beginning of spring—the most volatile, unpredictable stretch of the entire year. A lot can happen in that span, and a lot usually does.

So basing your planting date on Easter is like rolling the dice.

One year you hit a lucky 7.

The next year you roll snake eyes.

There are several different scenarios that occur when you use Easter/Good Friday as your plant date:

The Early Easter Scenario:

When Easter occurs in late March or early April, you have two different possible outcomes, but a much higher chance of failure:

Late Freeze—Snake Eyes

No Freeze—Lucky 7

You might get lucky and not have one of those later frosts or freezes, but since we are still in that very volatile meteorological time frame, the chances of a freeze or frost are very high. You have a much longer window for those fronts to come barreling down.

The Late Easter Scenario:

Early Freeze—Lucky 7

No Freeze—Missed out on 5 weeks of planting time

The years when Easter comes late are the years when this works best. But it's not because of Easter, it's because of the meteorological time frame. You are well past the time when fronts usually approach. You are in the "Safe Zone" for planting.

You might wind up coming out ahead by planting after Easter. Waiting could get you past those cold fronts—IF Easter falls late enough. At the same time, though, winter might be done mid-March, Easter might be falling late April, and you are missing almost five weeks of planting and growing time. 

Does that really make sense? It never has for me.

Let me ask a serious question here. If you take out the Easter reference entirely—if Easter actually fell sometime in September, what would you do in March or April? What would you recommend someone else do then?

That’s the standard you should set every year—ignoring the holiday and focusing on the fact that the date has no meteorological relevance.

Now, trust me, I fully admit I've been burned before. I've sown seed and set out starts too early in the past—only to lose them or have to drag them in and out of the house. I've lost many plants over the years due to late frosts. 

I've had the opposite happen as well. I've waited until April to sow my seeds and never got a late-season front. No frost, no freeze, AND no early seedlings either. I missed out on five weeks of prime gardening time.

No, I think it's better to ditch the moving window and go with much more reliable science. Waiting until mid-March or the beginning of April to get started just makes more sense to me.

Notice how I phrased that—March–April—not Easter… That’s basing things on climatology, current weather patterns, and trusted long‑range forecasts. 

That's science—not folklore. 

If you prefer, using the other plants in the area as a guide can also be very useful. 

Waiting for dandelions to pop up, clover to flower, pecan trees to start budding out. These are nature's clues that the weather is right. Things are warming up, soil is the right temperature, it's time for everything to wake up.  

Sadly, even then, it’s hit or miss. 

There's another interesting point I need to bring up here. Many of these debates on when to start plants occur in gardening groups that span the entire state or even multiple states. 

Local weather is based on local areas—and it's based on latitude. That means what I can do on the Gulf Coast doesn't carry over to what you can do up in Memphis. There is a lot of ground between those two areas, and a lot of difference in temperature and weather patterns. Even if a late front starts barreling down, Jackson might get a frost while Gulfport basks in 75° weather… 

What's the best baseline to go by?

• Wait until at least the first to second week in March
• Nighttime lows consistently above 45–50°
• Soil temps above 55° for warm-season crops
• No frost risk in the 10‑day forecast—and remember, frost happens well above freezing

I can't help but date myself here and bring back a memory of a very old song by The 5th Dimension…

"When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars…"

Yeah, I actually found that fitting…

No one has a crystal ball. Even using the above guidelines can mean failure, but using a large moving window as your target date is—in my opinion—just begging for disaster.

Whichever method you decide to use, I wish you the best. Gardening is hard work, takes a lot of effort, and also a bit of luck. Taking some of the volatility out of the equation reduces the amount of luck required and gives us that extra edge we all deserve.

Happy Gardening 🌱