I am wondering if I should put them in partial shade even though the seeds haven't germinated yet. The reason I'm debating doing this is because I know cool weather veggies have a difficult time even germinating if the weather is really hot. With the exception of lettuce that typically has germination issues above 75F or so SOIL temps cool season veggies love warm soils. Germination rates and speed are usually better and faster when seeds are sown in the summer and plants mature in the fall. Most folks seem to sow the seeds into cool/cold soil and have the plants mature in the summer which is 100% backward from how most of these cool season crops do their best. They like warm soil and cool air, not cool soil and warm air. I am not suggesting we all quit sowing seeds for a spring crop, just that the fall crop will germinate and grow faster due to warmer soil temps and longer days. The soil mixture I'm using is a combination of equal parts spahgnum peat moss, regular peat moss, Miracle Gro potting mix, and topsoil. The peat does help the soil to retain longer water. I don't know if prolonged water retention will help cool down the cool weather veggies I'm planting; I also don't know that if prolonged soil retention due to the peat moss helps them keep cool if it prolongs how long they're kept cool as a result of this. I just figured I'd bring it up. Sphagnum peat moss is 'regular' peat moss ;) I don't know why you would add topsoil to this or any other container mix, it's not going to do your plants any favors. The mix itself isn't going to do anything in regard to the internal temperature of the container. Here is what I suggest. If these containers can be moved to a shady place do so. Not so much because of the temps in your area, but because the bare mix in the sun is going to dry down on the surface from evaporation quickly and you don't want it drying out when trying to germinate seeds right in the pot. Once you have germination, move them back into full sun for best growth. If moving the pots isn't practical then don't do it. It will be fine. In the event something like the lettuce doesn't germinate in say 10 days-2 weeks it was too warm for it and just resow.

Okay, I have been experimenting with this for years. I'm way south of you, but I live on a mountain side, so I have mostly cool weather all summer (about a week of temps approaching 90 in the day, a month of 80s in the day, nights always in the 50s and 60s, 40s in May and September). Normally, for warm season crops, I plant the shortest DtM (days to maturity) varieties--tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn (rare, I hate to fight the raccoons), etc. I no longer even try melons, and have no interest in cowpeas or okra. :-) But you are asking about cool season crops. Yup, that's the majority of my garden, as the long, cool autumn before a hard freeze makes the cool season crops a joy. First of all, lettuce, radishes and spinach planted in the spring are going to bolt around mid-summer, even in a cool summer. It's a day-length thing, not temperature, for the most part. A few lettuce varieties have been bred/selected to hold longer before bolting, but I haven't seen great holding in spinach. Plan to plant again after the summer solstice. However, things will not grow as fast as the summer is winding down as they do when it is winding up. I have struggled with counting back 60 days from first frost to plant my 60 dtm lettuce or spinach and it just never matures. While you are learning the best practices for your area, I suggest you plant maybe 4 feet of seeds every 2 weeks up until you reach that (for example) 60 days before first frost. Keep note of it (I don't have a garden notebook, bad gardener, but I write this stuff on my wall calendar and have a stash of old calendars on top of my fridge) and you'll have a better idea of the planting window next year. Swiss chard and perpetual spinach are good spinach substitutes for mid summer. Both of these are basically beets selected for stems (chard) and leaves (perpetual spinach). I'm not a big fan of the stems, so I grow beets for a version of perpetual spinach. I rarely harvest the roots, but we do eat the greens. They also hold well into the cool season. If you like beet roots, plant again after sumer solstice to have nice tender roots at harvest time in the fall. Mulch thickly and you should be able to harvest the roots up until your soil freezes (or you can harvest and hold in a root cellar or your fridge). Turnips are also good for greens and the roots hold well in the ground until hard freeze. Again, plant after summer solstice. Winter radishes also go in after solstice. These are the Daikon radishes, but also Spanish black, German beer radishes, etc. These tend to be harvested much larger than spring radishes, and the ones I have grown are quite mild in the fall. Covered with mulch, they keep well in the garden until the ground freezes, and can be kept in a root cellar or refrigerator. My solution for cabbage and carrots is just the opposite of my warm-season veggies. I grow the long-season varieties! We like big fat carrots, so that works well. I don't rush to put them in early, but they can go in before my summer planting weekend (usually Memorial Day weekend or the weekend before). I've never had success with the early cabbages, but we've had some memorable January King cabbages that were just fine cooked, shredded for cole slaw, or shredded for sauerkraut. And again, they hold well in the garden until hard freeze. Oh, and we are a family that goes against the norm, even my kids like Brussels Sprouts (harvested after a frost and roasted, not boiled), so we have also grown those for late harvest. I have a nine-pack of Falstalf to go in next weekend, in fact. Need I say kale gets the same treatment as these other cabbage-family crops? I've tried Napa cabbage a couple of times without success. I'll have to take my own advice this year and plant a few every couple of weeks after summer solstice. BTW, deer LOVE, LOVE, LOVE members of the cabbage family. Rabbits do, too. I am learning to love rabbit fence (which keeps old fat chickens out of the garden, too) and re-mesh cages. Good luck with your cool-season garden! Catherine Here is a link that might be useful: Baker Creek's Radishes, many winter

We are building a cold frame with a sliding glass door panel that I got for free. It's double pane heavy glass, and I'm intrigued to find out how much warmer it will keep things. We're hoping we can harvest things for a long while here in New Hampshire. It will be fun to see how the experiment works. The special autumn edition of Fine Gardening magazine had an article about greens and lettuces that are good for colder weather. As far as lettuces, to sum up: if it has "winter" or "artic" in the name, it's been bred for cold resistance. I bought some "Winter Desnity" romaine and some "winter Marvel" butterhead, among others. The French use cold frames much more than we do, and evidently there are many French bred varities of lettuces that do well in cold weather - d'Hiver means of winter. I also have Elliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest book. In addition to corn salad (mache), miner's lettuce (claytonia or winter purslane), arugula and spinach, he suggests endive (especially frisee type), Chioggia radicchio, buskshorn plantain (minutina), mizuna, sorrel, escarole, chicory, and even swiss chard. He also mentions several other of what I think of as the more unusal salad greens.

Hi Darrylene, I've got some Tyee Spinach, Ming Choi Pak Choy(both Hybrids), and a couple of Broccoli's that mature incredibly fast & don't seem to mind the cold - Raab Zamboni & Purple Sprouting(both OP). Let me know if you are interested. If you still have your cayenne, english primrose & gourds I would love to try a few! Cheers, Nicky