Littledog, Oh, baby chicks. I just adore chickies. I've been holding off waiting for warmer weather. Might get some in the next week or two if the weather looks good after this cold spell passes. You might list the seed offer on the Exchange Page too....just click on the word Exchanges at the top of the forum's main page. That way, anyone who skips this post because they aren't interested in the weather won't also miss your seed offer. KSokiegonnab, We feed the birds so we have gazillions and I was listening to them singing a little while ago. Our goldfinches, which overwintered here, left about 10 days ago to head north, but we still get a couple that are probably migrating through daily. We've had cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice and many others all winter, but the phoebes have just returned and so have the bluebirds. I love the birds and have numerous feeders out, and birdbaths as well, and we never have a shortage of birds. Moni, Lucky you. I'm still hoping for rain here. None yet, but the front is just arriving in Love County. It was supposed to have come through all ready, but it is taking its good cold time. Honestly, Moni, what are we going to do with you? LOL Is your old place in Tulsa going to have a single plant left, or have you now dug up everything but the grass? And, uh, you aren't going to rent a sod cutter and move the lawn too, are you? I hope you didn't freeze your fingers off playing in the dirt today. Carol, I'm glad you stopped lurking and started "speaking". Oooh, y'all got really cold really fast there. Do I think it is the last cold spell? No. I hope it is, but I doubt it. Don't forget, y'all, that some of us....including poor old little me down here in Love County had a very, very, very, very late freeze on May 4th of last year. So, until that memory fades, I'll be expecting "one more last freeze". LOL Lifesblessings, You know, that 40 degrees sounds cold. It is still in the 70s here but should start dropping literally any minute now. I think there will be more cold. A late cold spell is always a possibility the week of Easter. It seems like the Easter Bunny always brings us a little cold weather. Lucky, lucky you. Rain! Yippee! Hoping it happens here. Dawn

Hi Steffie! Your experience with bermuda grass reminds me why I HATE bermuda grass. :) My brother put down black plastic (plain old black plastic like trash bags are made of, not the fabric mulch type) on a newly tilled flower bed and planted perennials right through it. When he removed that plastic FIVE YEARS LATER, there were still those long bermuda runners everywhere. I never try to make a new lasagna bed without removing the sod first, having learned the hard way. I found it interesting that your grandmother raised her crops in stages. I do the same thing, and have never met anyone here who does it in the precise, regimented way that I do. I'll use tomatoes as an example since they are the crop I grow the most of. I start my earliest seedlings, about 70% of my main season tomato crop, on Super Bowl weekend. Then, six weeks later I start the other 30%. I plant out in cycles, beginning in mid to late March most years, and get the late ones from the second planting into the ground by late April. Then, in mid to late-May I start seeds for fall tomatoes, or take and root cuttings in mid-June. I get the fall tomatoes in the ground in late June to early July. In late August I start seeds for a few winter tomatoes in containers, generally small-sized ones like Window Box Roma, Red Robin, Yellow Canary, etc. These tomatoes in pots can go into the garage or house during cold spells and extend the fresh tomato season quite a bit. I do similar succession plantings of most veggies, including beans (every three weeks), corn (every 5 weeks), melons (generally an early planting in mid-April and a late planting in late May), summer and winter squash, peppers, okra and black-eyed peas. I do the same thing with flowers. Take sunflowers. I plant different ones for each season. So, my spring sunflowers which will begin blooming in May most years, are some of the ones lightest in color like Italian White and Moonshadow and any of the ones with the lemon-yellow petals. The summer-blooming ones, which usually begin blooming in July, are the really golden-colored ones, of which there are many varieties. The late-summer to fall blooming ones are those in tawny fall-type colors like Autumn Beauty, Earthwalker, and any of the red-flowered ones like Chianti or Prado Red. So, I always have flats of replacement plants started and it is easy to put them in the ground and plug them into holes in my garden at any time. It can get rather complicated to keep track of what needs to go where and at what time, but by staggering plantings, I have found I can have a wonderful garden each and every week of the summer. Right now, I am starting flower seeds in small paper cups. These plants will go into the ground in mid-May. The first week in May, I start flower seeds that will go into the ground in June for blooms beginning in July. And so it goes, on and on and on. With all the stages of planting, I always have something new coming along and that pleases me. Dawn

Michelle: my question is why don't we want to use plastic, and by doing so, why can't it touch the plants and leaves? You can use plastic if that's all you have, and lots of people use clear plastic wrapped around tomato cages, etc. for its greenhouse-like effects. It's just that there are better insulators than plastic. The not touching the leaves thing is probably for two reasons: 1) It's the air trapped under the plastic that insulates the plants, and where the plants touch the plastic, there is no insulation, and, since the plastic itself is a poor insulator, it will essentially conduct the cold directly onto plant parts in contact. With things like actual frost blankets, etc., there are also tiny air pockets in the cloth itself that provide insulation. Plastic doesn't have that. Think about how well you can feel hot and cold through plastic gloves vs through cloth gloves. 2) Moisture condenses easily on plastic and stays there, and parts of plants that get wet during a frost can be more damaged than parts of plants that stay dry. Frost cover, etc. tends to be breathable and wicks moisture so doesn't present this problem as badly. I don't think it's a big deal if a few bits and pieces here and there come in contact with plastic, such as would happen if you wrapped a tomato cage in plastic. But sometimes people misunderstand wrapping and do it too tightly.

I'm with Glib....the last thing in the world I wanted to do was create another 200 post debate on global warming! It's also interesting to hear from other countries and less common crops (olives). You also confirmed that no matter where you live or what you grow, the weather can have profound impact on it and there are always challenges with growing things. We ended up getting to 0 degrees here and predicted 8 degrees tonight, so based on the kind, optimistic comments above I may be ok- even though it was an incredibly rapid drop in temperature. Michael357- Sounds like we have a LOT in common! That was an incredible guess based only on a username, but a correct one. "City Man" fits me for 2 reasons. One is for the reason most assume I selected it- a city boy living in the country. All of my adult live was spent living in medium/large cities, until I moved to the country 3 years ago. Everyone says I'm the epitome of Oliver Douglass from Green Acres and expect to see me wearing a suit on my tractor! ha. Strangely, I like the analogy. ha. But the other reason I selected "Cityman" is EXACTLY what you guessed....my job title is, in fact, City Manager. And because it is a fairly small city, just like you, my day to day work is varied more than just supervising department heads and budgets. As you know, in smaller towns duties are most definitely varied and "as assigned". But I love the work! Anyway, I hope the rest of you made it through the cold without any damage. Around here we only have about 6 weeks of potential hard freeze weather left. Of course then I get to worry about late frosts which can be equally damaging to crops. Ahhh....its always something but all of you know that! Does anyone feel the current freeze damaged your trees/orchards/grapes/berries?