SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Plants like radishes, peas, and cabbage are all cool-season plants, meaning they prefer to grow in cooler conditions and can survive a light frost, but what makes them tolerant to the cold?
“I would just say it’s the biology of that plant family or that species of plant...some plants are more drought tolerant than other plants will grow in standing water you know we look at trees a bald cypress tree will grow in standing water grows better if it’s not in standing water, but it’ll grow and be fine in standing water," said Mark Evans, a Purdue Extension Educator in Elkhart County.
Evans mainly focuses on Plant and Soil Science and told me that different families of plants are more likely to be warm or cool-seasoned, crops that we grow for the root product or the leafy green product especially like the cold.
Evans said, “But then there’s other things that really like warmer temperatures you know corn is a warm season grass really a lot of people don’t think of corn as a grass, but it truly is a grass.”
While we're dealing with fluctuating spring conditions, it's important to consider the type of plants you can plant.
Now there’s two types of plants, ones that grow better in cooler seasons, and ones that grow better with warmer seasons. Cooler season plants can usually withstand a little more temperature fluctuation, even light frost. Some plants like that include lettuce, radishes, onions, potatoes, and peas.
Plants like this can be planted right now, and even if we see a drop into the 40s overnight, they’ll be alright.
Some popular warm-season plants include melons, squashes, tomatoes, corn, and green beans. These plants are a little bit more susceptible to temperature changes, with most of the produce we pick from them being the fruit of the plant rather than part of the plant itself.