Undoubtedly.
However, my 80yr old dad who farmed was shocked at the frost in May. That hasn’t happened in his lifetime. It broke a record from the late 1890’s.
I’d love to see the temps and first/last frost dates around here from the Dalton Minimum.
Where has he lived?
I am nearly 71 and have lived in Wisconsin since 1964. I can recall several years prior to and during the 1970s, with May frosts. They aren’t *hard*, but they can injure new starts.
We never plant before Memorial Day or the first week of June. Even if it is a warm Spring, we keep the starts potted in a greenhouse or hoop house and have a heating option available.
This year, the May frost was made worse by 2 weeks of rain. Anyone whose starts survived the frost, ended up with early blight. Our garden was too thick to drink, too thin to plow, so I just put everything in 10-gallon pots and gave away about 60 starts to people who had lost theirs to the rain.