My blog schedule says that today’s topic is gardening. The arugula died about two weeks ago, and that’s all I have for the monthly update.
An article in yesterday’s paper said that plant hardiness zones are changing. We’re now in 5b, not 5a, which means that the average annual extreme minimum temperature is -15 to -10 (-26.1 to -23.3 C), not -20 to -15 (-28.9 to -26.1 C). (Note the “extreme”. It is not usually anywhere near that cold here.)
This isn’t surprising to me, since I’ve been sort of ignoring the maps on the backs of seed packets since I started my garden a few years ago. But now it’s official. It helps that we’re at the southern end of the zone, almost in 6a (a balmy -10 to -5). I grew up in 9a (20-25 or -6.7 to -3.9 C), which is why my parents have citrus trees and why I find it acceptable to complain about cold weather, snow, and ice.
The new map lets you look up your location by zip code.
As a side note, this is quite likely the first thing I’ve written about the Agricultural Research Service since I covered the agriculture beat in journalism school.