Lettuce - too early or too late?

Hi Everyone!

Its been a couple of years since I've posted or had a garden and now I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Planning to finish my garden today and was going to plant lettuce because its a cold weather crop. My question about that is it too early or too late for lettuce?  Looking at the frost dates from one website says the last frost will be in April if I'm reading it correctly. See the quote below.

"For spring, there is an 80% chance that you will be past the danger of a hard 24° freeze on February 19, but very light surprise frosts of 36° can still hit until around April 8. Do you like to live on the edge? You have a 50% chance of being past 32° frost by April 6."

What do you think? If its too early I won't plant it and won't finish the garden and brush it off until next weekend. If its too late then what other crops can I plant now or within the next week? And if its just right then I have some work to do today    Now that I think about it, are there other crops I can plant now along with lettuce?

Thank you!

Hi Hitchhiker,

If I was where you are, I'd be all over getting your choices of lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage, broccoli, onions, and cauliflower out there.  These plants are pretty cold tolerant.  The lettuce I've grown has survived light frost and produced well.  Also spinach - I've had spinach that has gotten snowed on (and subjected to light frost at the same time), and it actually seemed to like it.

I have a planting calendar that's put out by our local extension as a planting guide.  I found one here for NC, but if you do a little more Googling, you might be able to find a better one.

Go for it, hitchhiker!  I agree with CK.  Not too late at all!  Also, there is a free app called Skippy's Garden that was very accurate for me last year.  

Glad you're back!

For cool crops ? I don't worry about freezes any more. I had 36 maturing kohlrabi plants last year, 2 nights of 18 degree temps and snow.. all 36 plants survived, they were not covered either.