Thank you very much, Dawn! I assume you're getting your cool season list made up as well? Also, where do you usually purchase your hot pepper seeds from? This post was edited by Dulahey on Mon, Jan 13, 14 at 15:22

Bon, Home-made seed tapes work just fine. You can find instructions all over the internet. Just be sure you let them dry thoroughly before you put them up to await the day you plant them. If you put them up wet, the flour/water paste can turn moldy. You can use newsprint (not the glossy inserts), paper towels cut in strips, toilet paper, etc. Rodney, It is nice to have you visit us from the land of ice and snow. I hope our endless conversations about the early arrival of warm weather (it arrives every week, stays a few days, and then turns cold again) doesn't make you too crazy. Spring may arrive early here sometimes, especially compared to how late it arrives there for you, but then the cold nights keeps coming back and coming back and coming back. I'll had the temperature go down to freezing when tomato plants were knee-high to waist-high and covered in fruit. Last year, we harvested our first tomatoes on the last day of April (from plants protected on cold nights with frost blanket type row covers), sliced up that tomato, made BLTs and enjoyed every bite. That night or maybe the next night, we had our last freezing temperature of the year. By then, I had tomato plants that were 4' tall and loaded with fruit. C'mon now, is that normal? Nope, but we have to deal with whatever wild, crazy ride the OK weather brings us in any given year. So, while we talk of planting early, we also have to protect plants relatively late. What a terrific grow list you have! I would have thought you'd have idea conditions for the brassicas and for potatoes. Even here, potatoes do well most years, but if we fail to harvest them in time, the heat and humidity can make them collapse into a soggy, rotted mess some years (not necessarily all). Bon, I agree with Rodney. To my taste buds, garlic tastes like garlic. I like it all and never have had any I haven't liked. Today's weather-related surprise (Rodney, you should skip this little announcement of mine if you love asparagus and if the thought of us harvesting it now is going to make you crazy): this afternoon, while working in the garden, in 70-something-degree heat, I harvested the first asparagus spear. I washed it off, pinched off the tip that had been in the ground, broke it in half, and Tim and I stood there and ate that tender, yummy taste of spring. We both were shocked. I am pretty sure we've never harvested asparagus in early February before. I'm not even sure if we've ever had any to harvest in late February. March is more typical. This needs its own thread, and maybe it will get one later, but here goes. Today, at the Wal-Mart in Gainesville, TX, across the Red River from us, they had all kinds of veggies. All kinds. Including tomato plants and a handful of pepper plants. It is far too early for tomato plants--even Gainesville's average last freeze date surely cannot be much earlier than mine (March 28th) and far, far, far too early for pepper plants. So, what's a gardener to do? Especially when their own tomato plants are just tiny sprouts? Yep, I did it. I bought one of each variety they had: Big Beef, Early Girl, Celebrity and Sweet 100. They were in small (maybe 3 or 4") round peat pots. I repotted them into gallon pots and they are sitting on a shelf in my mudroom. I was going to put them in the unheated greenhouse but we're headed for a low in the 30s tonight more than likely, and I had left the doors open all day until sunset so there was no build-up of heat to keep them warm. It is likely that the first tomato we harvest in April will come from one of these plants. I hope the folks at that store remember to cover up the plants this weekend when we're expected to get pretty close to freezing. And for anyone in my neck of the woods wondering if the Wal-Mart in Ardmore has any tomato plants in the store, they did not, as of yesterday. Usually Gainesville gets them at least a week or two before Ardmore does. Oh, and we had to go across the road to the Gainesville Home Depot to get something Tim needed. I made a beeline straight to the garden center and they had the exact same tomato plants and pepper plants that Wal-Mart had, as well as all the cold-season veggies and herbs and tons of flowers. After he found what he came for, he had to come drag me out of the garden center because I was going to stay out there with all those plants all day.

This wasn't our first app of the Round Up. There may certainly still be underground roots, but it has stopped coming back above ground, so there's nothing left that's green, to take up more Round Up. We hit it two or three times.

Amy, Your list is officially the most insane list so far. How many big tubs are you going to use? I always try to not devote so much space to cool-season plants that no space remains for warm-season ones. That's always a huge challenge for me, so I have to really watch myself at cool-season planting time. nowyousedum, All my asparagus is in one bed---each variety has its own row. Planting times vary, but for most cool-season veggies, the OSU-recommended planting dates are from Feb 15 to Mar 10. I'll link the fact sheet with the dates. With some things, like asparagus, you can plant them as soon as you get your hands on the crowns. I'm pretty sure that in the year I planted mine, I bought the bags of crowns in early January and planted immediately, Since asparagus is perennial and can stay in place for decades, it is important to do great soil prep first because you cannot go back after the fact and dig up the roots and redo the soil. Any future soil improvement you do after the asparagus is planted mostly consists of adding layers of compost and mulch on top of the asparagus bed and letting it get worked into the soil naturally by rainfall and small burrowing/digging insects and earthworms. Here's the OSU planting guide with dates. Please note that there's a range of dates for each veggie. For Spring planting, the earliest dates are recommended for far southeastern OK, the latest dates for far northwestern OK, and the rest of us who live in between the two extremes choose an appropriate date, based on our location and weather, somewhere within that range of dates. Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide Jack, I like the purple asparagus a lot. It has a very fine flavor. I hope you enjoy yours as well. Dawn