As Easter came at its earliest date since 1913, I think the overnight low here might have been just as rare.

Yesterday was a beautiful March day in North Dakota; sunny skies and light winds. I spent most of the day in a T-shirt working in the greenhouse, planting a variety of items like tomatoes and peppers that seem to take a long time to germinate.

But as the sun went down and there were no clouds in the sky, the temperature dropped like a lead balloon. I did everything I could to keep the temperature from freezing some new seedlings I had put out that were started earlier in the house. It must have worked. The seedlings are OK, but there was ice in containers of rain water.

There's an old saying around here where people say you should plant your potatoes on Good Friday. In our case, that was March 21 and the ground isn't even thawed out in some places.

Just for fun though, I'm going to plant a couple of Yukon Gold potatoes today, on Easter Sunday, to see how they do this early.