its always possible, here in VA weve had snow in April, if it happens id cover what i could and bring the others inside. it wouldnt be a total loss. Most of my peppers/tomatoes are in containers. Corn was old seed and between you and i, not a variety i cared for anyways and i have probably 2lbs of corn seed that needs to be planted in the next 1-2 yrs anyways i guess it wouldnt kill me, just really pi$$ me off a little(more because its my own fault, and i should know better). Im more worried about another hail storm. had one last spring that just destroyed my garden, including my corn. then 2nd run of corn we had the hurricane...

My asparagus foliage is covered with green 'berries' that will be turning red in a few weeks. I will harvest them, let them dry and will be happy to send you some. Can you wait? I would love some of your pepper 'twilight' and/or patty pan squash.

ok- the radishes, spinach, peas, iceberg are all winter or very early spring crops here. if they haven't already, they will bolt (bloom & die) soon (or in the case of the peas, stop producing & die). once that happens, pull those out & plant warm weather stuff in their places. except for the iceberg & radishes, all of those can be cut & come again- ie- you harvest once & it grows back. brocolli and cauliflower are also cool season, and sometimes will produce side shoots arfter you harvest the main floret, but if it gets warm, they'll peter out quickly. cool season stuff really does 150% better here if you plant it in late fall, let it overwinter, either covered or not, and then it takes off come spring. if you cover things (like with reemay, a floating row cover), you'll get an earlier crop, or perhaps even harvest all winter. the corn, toms, squash, zuch, melons, cukes, loupes, eggplant will all produce more than once. keep harvesting until it's apparent they aren't setting more fruit or are dying. there are 2 types of tomatoes- indeterminate, which gets very long (you'll need support of some kind), keeps setting fruit til it dies; and determinate, which stops growing at some point, sets all the fruit it will, and after you pick that, they'll die. they stay shorter and stockier, and can be planted successively to crop all summer. so it depends on which type you planted. the bulk of the ones that are available are indeterminate- if it doesn't specify on the tag or seed packet, it's probably indet. all this is dependant on things not getting diseases or pests, so if you notice something fishy attacking your stuff, you may need to yank & replant. some things you can treat, so don't panic. post specifics & someone will help- there's far too many to go into ahead of time. if you're not on the gardensalive catalog list, it might be worth visiting their site, because they have a great troubleshooting guide (which of course recommends their expensive products!) i rarely buy from them, but they are a great info resource. wyatt quarles produces a great timetable chart for when to plant stuff & when it'll be bearing. i don't have the link offhand, but you should be able to find it if you google wyatt quarles. since they are based in garner, it is very in tune to our area. hope this helps! enjoy the learning process- it's so much fun to get those first few harvests. well, the thrill never goes away, but there's someting extra special about the first couple times. it's addicting- and you won't see food the same way afterwards. nor will yor son- he'll appreciate that things don't grow in the store. too many kids today have no clue. good for you! tammy

Johnny, I love crowder peas and think Americans should eat more of them. They're just as strong and resilient in our worst heat and drought as the more popular southern peas like pink eye purple hulls, zipper, lady and cream peas but just try finding any fresh ones in the grocery story in the summer----it isn't going to happen! So, we grow our own. I do wonder if there is some inherent bias against them because a lot of them are dark in color and also cook up a dark "gravy" when cooked. (Cornbread exists to soak up the gravy, does it not?) I also think their crowded, sort of smushed-in, sometimes dimpled appearance is not as appealing to some folks as the more normal-looking other types of southern peas. This kind of reminds me of the way some people don't like cutshort beans because they look "funny". I always suggest they just taste them instead of hating on them because they don't look "right". Nothing ever will take the place of crowders in my garden, although my favorite southern peas likely always will be Pink Eye Purple Hull. I could plant only PEPH varieties and be happy, but do try to add a crowder, lady, zipper or cream pea to my list every year. I like watching for some of the more obscure ones at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Heavenly Seed, Willhite Seed or Baker Creek Heirloom Seed. I'm not sure about the others, but I know Willhite and SESE sell bulk seed of their various southern peas for folks with larger gardens. I like my southern peas of all types harvested green, so I spend an inordinate amount of time in the summer sitting with a bowl of southern peas in my lap shelling them. (It takes me back to my childhood and evenings spent sitting on the front porch shelling peas with the porch light on and moths crashing into the screen door while seeking the light.) If I liked the southern peas in their drier stage, I'd buy a pea sheller and leave them on the plants longer and harvest them when they were dry enough to go through the sheller without being smashed/crushed to death. A Farmer's Market near my hometown always had a pea sheller running on weekends, shelling any sort of southern pea that a shopper had just purchased. To me, a sheller is one of those old-timey southern farm things that is disappearing in this day and age when so many people just buy canned or dry southern peas in packages at the store. If I was growing southern peas for a food bank, I'd grow crowders for sure, and I'd harvest them after they were dry enough for the sheller to shell them. I don't know of anything that gives a better return in the dead of summer than all types of southern peas, including crowders. Depending on what sort of soil they're growing in and how well it holds moisture, you often don't even have to water them at all. Even in 2011, my southern peas produced well, given the circumstances, which at our house (and at many others in OK that year) included no rainfall for almost 3 months and high temperatures over 100 degrees for around 90-100 consecutive days. They did wilt when we were hitting 110-115 every day, but so did everything else, including this gardener. Do y'all grow crowders for the food bank? I think they would be an important part of your crop rotation, especially since you can just rototill the spent plants into the ground for soil improvement after the harvest is over. Oh, I guess harvesting tons of them by hand would be labor intensive, but so are a lot of other crops. Usually, when I harvest southern peas, I don't process the different types separately. I just shell them all together and cook them and eat them all together. I do the same thing with snap peas and shellies. I like having diversity on my dinner plate. Some folks don't like to mix together all their peas, but I grow too many different varieties for me to sit there and harvest them and shell them and process them all separately. I'd never sleep. Remember, too, that all southern peas can be used to make pea hull jelly, which is one of those wonderful, tasty jellies that people cannot believe came from a waste product like pea hulls. My favorite, though, is from Pink Eye Purple Hulls. I've never made pea hull jelly from crowders as I generally grow less of them. I grow all of my vining type southern peas on the garden fences, so I occasionally lose a pea pod or leaf here or there to the nibbling deer, but not as often as a person would think. My favorite way to plant vining types of southern peas is to leave the last harvest on the vines and to leave the vines on the fences all winter long. When I yank down the spent vines at soil preparation time, the remaining pods split open and the peas fall to the ground. The next season's crop just pops up on its own without any planting action on my part. I've kept Red Ripper peas going for years that way, and hope to do the same with the calico crowders. We'll see if the pine voles allow that. Last year they ate the roots of every type of bush southern pea I grew, at the rate of one plant per night beginning some time in July. They preferred PEPHs to all others, and their favorite was Mackey. They ate all of my Mackey plants before they moved on to other varieties. They didn't bother Red Ripper or Colossus at all. Dawn