The Great Karnak, here, at your service.

I will now make weather predictions for all the gardening zealots whose idea of success in life is neither fame nor fortune but slicing into a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato before the Fourth of July. Or, at the very least, of doing it a week before the neighbors.

As many of us know, any chance of achieving this goal depends on correctly timing the planting of tomatoes on the leading edge of the spring surge of warm weather. Other factors such as the variety of tomato planted, air temperatures and the absence or presence of rainfall, cloudless days, disease and bugs count for nothing if you don’t hit the planting date squarely on the nose.

Predicting the ultimate moment for placing that first tomato plant in the ground is a hit-and-miss proposition that requires a perverse combination of luck and foolhardy derring-do. Not even the time-tested formula used by the Farmer’s Almanac is up to the job. Case in point: Its forecast for this week, when we are under a winter weather advisory, calls for “a spell of pleasant weather.”

That’s where I come in. Imbued with the smugness that comes from heading into the Final Four with the middle of my bracket neatly intact, I feel eminently qualified to be stepping out on this limb. That’s right: In a moment of uncharacteristic clairvoyance, I correctly picked the Indiana-Duke upset.

I can feel the awe. The check is in the mail.

And now drumroll, please I hereby predict that the 2002 Earliest Date for Successfully Planting Tomatoes in Northeast Kansas will be April 28. This optimal spot on the calendar is a full eight days after the average date of the last killing frost and still leaves 67 days of growing time until the Fourth of July.

All things being equal, this will be more than adequate for Early Girl and other fast-producing varieties, which theoretically bear fruit in less than 60 days but always take a bit longer, to arrive on time for the July 4 picnic.

Now we have to decide how to hedge the bet. My target date assumes that the temperatures between now and then will be seasonably up and down but favoring the cool end of the thermometer. In some years, when the early spring is warm, we can plant tomatoes a few days on the early side of April 20, but my Hoosier hunch says not this time.

When you plant, you want to be reasonably certain that your overnight low wind chill is not going to drop much below 50 and that your daytime highs will be firmly lodged in the 70s and 80s.

I’m also assuming that the tomato plants in question will be unprotected from the elements and will be placed in sun-warmed ground. In other words, cheating by using Wall-o-Waters, electric heating coils in the soil or any other Mother Nature-fooling gadgetry will not be allowed.

You might, however, stick these plants under growing lights indoors for the second and third weeks of April, making sure to set the lights only an inch above the plants to keep them from getting leggy. During the final week before planting, harden them off outdoors, preferable in a cold frame, and be ready to haul them indoors if the overnight temperature takes too sharp a dip.

And finally, put down black plastic over the soil for which the plants are destined and leave it there for a week. Tomato plants prefer their soil temperatures to remain in the 70s.

Now, here’s the ultimate hedge: Because I could be dead wrong, being either too early or too late, the prudent gardener will plant tomatoes in succession. Once the soil and overnight air temperatures are warm enough, begin planting some tomatoes each week through mid-May, with the majority of your crop planted after May 1. Even if you lose the plants at the front end of the chain, you’ll still have plenty more, and one of them is likely to produce that Fourth of July tomato.

When she’s not writing about foods and gardening, Gwyn Mellinger is teaching journalism at Baker University. Her phone number is (785) 594-4554.