Hey Ray, sounds good! I'd love to have a little greenhouse, too. More room would mean more delcious food! Maybe some year... Anyway, I thought it was amusing yesterday, there was a little "official statement" on TWC website that this was one of the mildest winters ever. Oh, really? I would not have thought that, thanks weather channel. I'm a bit south of you, but my peas are sprouting, and I have turnips, carrots, beets, chard, radish, and potatoes in the ground plus various cool weather transplants waiting in the wings. Now if this darned wind would go away...

I don't know what Swiss chard tastes like, but I tried to grow them for about for 3 years and they did even worse. The beets were planted after the chard, but the heavy flood rains killed one sprout every day, I have about 8 left and put in new seed, only see 2 sprouts. Same with spinach, I put in new sprouts when the seed didn't take, one by one, I'm down to 6 plants and replanted around them, no sprouts yet, but it may come. My ph is high, I added sulfur to the front half that is going great, but the back isn't in yet. I just planted a few corn seeds, about 24 and need to put more of them out. Couldn't get anything done in the rain, very very rainy season for Tennessee. Why is it the good stuff like squash and pumpkins, cucumbers, they do great, easy to grow, more of a favorite to eat, but those terrible greens most people don't even like, won't grow? I'm going to plant mustards this week, they are great growers and seem to do better in my soil. They do good every year! They are not good raw, the guinea pig doesn't like them as much. My leaf lettuce is doing good, it's a green although most are the reddish burgundy types. They grew better than the turnips, the turnips are doing a little bit of disappearing act as well and not sprouting so fast. Well, they needed to be hilled is what I'm going to guess and I can do that very easily. Maybe the spinach does too? What about chard? Does it need to be hilled to? Thanks for the replies and your pictures are making me jealous! I love pickled beets, sweet pickled, I don't eat them that often, but that was the goal for them, to pickle them. Maybe spinach under a big tree? They'll think they are hostas! LOL! Really the mustards were the best looking and growing of all the ones I've tried so far.

5b, Chicago. I don't get why half the time this auto fills for my zone and half the time it doesn't. I've got a small cold frame I'm going to see if I can keep something going all winter in. I tried posting on the growing under lights forum, but it's been kind of dead over there. I did get a good response to a question I posted maybe a month ago about growing potatoes indoors. I had tomatoes that I started indoors too early that were flowering before it was time to plant them out. So did my peppers that I started too early. Oh, and I had a sugar snap pea (which weren't happy when I transplanted them out... direct seeding from now on) that also was flowering. It's one of the reasons why I was thinking toms and fruiting veggies would be an option. Carrots sound like a good idea too. Especially since something ate all but a few of my fall carrot sowing so I won't have any stockpiled for winter.

This is an email I sent to a neighbor who was asking the same questions: A good book to get is A Gardener's Companion for the San Joaquin Valley; it is published by the Master Gardens of Fresno County. They say to plant in August from seed: Basil Beans Beets Bok Choy Broccoli Cabbage carrot Cauliflower Chives Dill Endive Fennel Green Onions Kohlrabi Leeks Lettuce Mustard Peas Potatoes Rutabagas Spinach Squash Swiss Chard Turnips To plant in Sept. from plants and * from seed: Broccoli Cabbage Carrots* Cauliflower Chinese Cabbage Garlic Lettuce* Parsley* Peas* Potatoes Radish* Spinach* Sugar Snap Peas* In October: Beets* Broccoli Carrots* Cauliflower Garlic Lettuce* Onion sets Snow Peas* Spinach* Swiss Chard* Turnips*