New York Times gardening and landscape writer Anne Raver, who gardens on her family farm in Carroll County, was on WYPR's Maryland in the Morning with Tom Hall Wednesday morning - her regular stop - and she contradicted advice I gave here last week: that it is probably safe to put your tomato plants in the ground.

I have the highest regard for Anne, and she said to wait. The ground is too wet and cold for tropicals like tomatoes and peppers.

Since I repeated the homespun advice - you can plant your tomatoes after the dogwood trees bloom - it has been unseasonably cold and rainy and the ground is particularly inhospitable to tomatoes and peppers right now.

Personally, I've always put mine in the ground on Mother's Day, but it doesn't look like the ground will be dry enough and warm enough this weekend either.

So perhaps the advice I saw elsewhere - don't even bother until Memorial Day because you gain nothing and could lose everything - might be right.

Thanks Anne.

Photo courtesy of the ASPCA