Dakota Gardener: Sowing vegetable seeds during a fickle spring

Deciding the optimal time to sow vegetable seeds in the garden is never easy in the northern Plains. Back-to-back blizzards in the west, flooding in the east, and 50-degree temperature swings make this year more challenging than most.

The calendar approach to gardening may not work for direct sowing seeds. Gardening calendars are based on the average last frost date. The averages are calculated...