Frost: Right On-Time?

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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andy10917
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Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by andy10917 » October 17th, 2020, 8:11 am

Where I live, October 17th is the Average First Frost Date, and the beginning of "The Pause" for me. The Average First Frost Date is much more important than the Actual First Frost Date in any single year, but I woke up today to a Frost Advisory. I can't remember a year where they actually lined up exactly, but there's a first for everything...

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by ken-n-nancy » October 17th, 2020, 8:27 am

+1 on the "Average First Frost Date" being much more important for cool-season lawns than the actual first frost date.

Our "Average First Frost Date" is Sept 26th. We haven't yet had an actual first frost here in Southern NH, although we just barely missed it on a pair of nights a few weeks ago, even before the 26th - there was light frost on the roofs of the cars in the driveway which had clear view of the night sky, but the temperature stayed above 32F and there was no frost on the lawn at all. Haven't had anything close since then, although tonight's forecast is for right around 32F again.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by edslawn » October 17th, 2020, 8:56 am

My average first frost date is Oct 19th according to Dave's site. In 2019, it was on the 19th, 2018 was the 30th and this morning I woke up to a pretty solid frost out front on the yard. Looks like I'm officially in the Pause.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by Pway » October 17th, 2020, 9:00 am

No frost here yet our average is October 20. Two years ago actual was November 12. Last year was first week of November.

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ken-n-nancy
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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by ken-n-nancy » October 17th, 2020, 9:33 am

edslawn wrote:
October 17th, 2020, 8:56 am
My average first frost date is Oct 19th according to Dave's site. In 2019, it was on the 19th, 2018 was the 30th and this morning I woke up to a pretty solid frost out front on the yard. Looks like I'm officially in the Pause.
Good record-keeping.

Just want to mention that if your average first frost date is Oct 19th, then the "Pause" doesn't start until then, even if you had an unusually early actual first frost that happened two weeks ago. Similarly, even in 2018, when your actual first frost was the 30th, your "Pause" would have started on Oct 19th, even though you hadn't yet actually had frost. "The Pause" starts at the date of the average first frost, not the actual first frost.

The exception upon which to base starting your "Pause" at a different time would be if you have a record of the actual dates of top growth stoppage for your lawn from at least a few years. In that case, you could instead determine your "Pause" date as being 4 weeks (well, call it a month) before your average date of "top growth stoppage."


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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 17th, 2020, 12:18 pm

Frost warnings are up for tonight, I'll start removing the tropical annuals from the gardens here shortly. That puts us about six days ahead of normal schedule.

The lawn hasn't hit The Pause yet but...mine seems irregular about that anyway. Yeah, welcome to my world. My grass is odd and strange because I am odd and strange.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by northeastlawn » October 17th, 2020, 4:05 pm

I think around October 20th for us: no frost in site. In fact warm weather forecast all week.

I am probably calling it a year anyway for weekly urea, I got my cut down to 2”, That’s good for mulching and spotting the poa-a seed heads still taunting me that the made it through the summer.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 17th, 2020, 7:18 pm

P. annua: Nyah. Nyah-nyah. Nyah. Nyah. Nyah.

Gardens 70% out, still leaving 600 square feet. Mostly mowed into the lawn this year so far. Dahlia lifted.

Mom's gardens partially out. Surprise task of some of Mom's shrubs cut back done, after warning that October really isn't...OK, yes, of course, but Mom, no problem, but really October isn't...OK. The cutbacks were minor and mostly shaping cuts anyway, so not really a problem.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by northeastlawn » October 17th, 2020, 7:29 pm

[quote=MorpheusPA post_id=344428 time=1602976708 user_id=112]
P. annua: Nyah. Nyah-nyah. Nyah. Nyah. Nyah. [/quote]

That hurts more than you know :-)

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 17th, 2020, 9:55 pm

Oh, I know. I have a few I sprayed Tenacity on to put a beat-down on them before General Winter hits. The current temperature is 37 and falling.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by bpgreen » October 17th, 2020, 11:23 pm

Average first frost here it's 10/16. It's not unusual to have snow in October.

Not this year.

No frost yet and none in the 10 day forecast. I don't think I'll need to wear sweats to bike before tube end of the month.

It's been a hot and dry year here.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 18th, 2020, 1:21 am

1:18 AM. Channel 7 just finished up with Kolchak: The Night Stalker. It just hit official 33 air temperature. Frost has formed on the grass when I let the dogs out.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 18th, 2020, 7:04 am

And we did hit 30 degrees just before sunrise, 7 AM or so, so a fairly deep freeze here.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by andy10917 » October 18th, 2020, 7:54 am

Borderline situation here - frost on metal surfaces, etc but no visible frost on the lawn/plants. It was 34 degrees when I got up around 7am. When I did leave mulching yesterday, the "Emblem" front lawn had definitely slowed its growth some, but the "Blueberry" back lawn was still racing along. No more Urea - I declared "The Pause" is in effect. Soil is cooling quickly whether or not actual frost happened.

Mrs10917 worked with me all day and carried her share of the work - I'm indebted. Of course nothing can go completely smoothly on the "Peak Week" toughest day of the year - the tractor (back yard only) had the battery give up the ghost.

*** Update and Declaration of BS: once the sun rose over the mountain and I could really see, we had frost on many plants and spotty areas of the lawn.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by Smolenski7 » October 18th, 2020, 8:15 am

It hit 33'F here in Central CT early this morning. There's definitely a light frost on everyone's lawn around me. This is the first time and fashionably late for the area. I believe the average first frost is around the 10th. Top growth for my lawn has definitely slowed a bit, I'm cutting every 4 days instead of 3. My father's lawn, however, has shown no signs of slowing down. We did get some rain this week, and temps look to be on the warmer side, so I really don't know what to expect for the near future.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by fun4me2 » October 18th, 2020, 10:43 am

A definite heavy frost on my front lawn this morning. (north)
A lighter frost on my back yard. (south)
My average 1st frost date is in Sept. 28
I did have a very light frost on Sept. 19th but didn't affect any plants.
Was mowing every 3-4 days since, now since we finally got some rain....
mulch mowing every 2-3 days. HOC is at 2 1/2" at the moment.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by ken-n-nancy » October 18th, 2020, 2:01 pm

Last night was the first frost we had on our lawn; our "average first frost" is September 26th, so this is later than usual for us.

Even last night, the frost was only in the "sunny" areas that have the greatest sky exposure. The newly-renovated portion of the lawn didn't have any frost on the grass morning on the renovation, with the same situation in the side lawn, back lawn, and roadside peninsula, which all have very limited sky exposure. It was only the "sunniest" area of the front lawn that had frost. However, it made for a good pic.
Image

The renovation, on the other hand, has quite a few leaves only 24 hours after having cleared them all and mowed!
Image

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by mvftw » October 28th, 2020, 4:56 pm

I just want to be sure I understand this...
My First Frost Average (32* @ 50%) is Nov 7 (11758)
So I would put down 2lb/1000 of Urea (46-0-0) around Thanksgiving...

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by andy10917 » October 28th, 2020, 7:22 pm

No. The Urea goes down when the grass completely stops the top growth - that happens when that happens, NOT on any calendar date.

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Re: Frost: Right On-Time?

Post by MorpheusPA » October 28th, 2020, 8:14 pm

Agreed. My first frost was 10 days ago. My last mow? Well, I'll let you know. November 10th? December 5th? It'll probably be somewhere in that range. Probably. And even if it stops, it may start again!

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