Soil Temps

by Evelyn Adee
(Bruce, SD)

This is my 3rd year for a veggie garden and I try to find out as much as I can. Question: how do I get the temp of my garden soil. In SD I have been told the soil must be at 70 degrees before planting. How do obtain when the soil is 70 degrees?

Doug says the "easiest" way is to put the inner side of your wrist on the ground. If that feels comfortable then the soil is fine. If it feels "cold" then don't plant.

The garden legend is that you should drop your pants and put the exposed gluteus maximus muscle onto the garden soil and if you can sit there for any length of time, the soil is warm enough. :-)

Or you could pick up a soil thermometer.

Or - you can ignore the guideline for 70F soil temps (that's pretty high for spring planting) and simply go with what everybody else is doing.

Or you could wait until the May 24th weekend and go for that (assuming there's no cold weather / frost on the horizon)

I generally go with timing - looking for mid-May in my USDA 4/5 garden.

Hope that helps.