If you were to consider the mildest local mesoclimates in our region and the coldest, and find the average dates of the last frost for each, you would indeed have a difference of more than a month... maybe two! Heck, some of the mildest places occasionally go through a winter with no frost at all. But as gardengal says, the last frost date has limited applications when it tends to be too cold and wet for many heat-loving vegetables and annuals before June (or May, depending on the plant). As for exactly what your last frost date is - if you're on the valley floor it's probably sometime in May. If you're on a slope with good air drainage, it's probably earlier.

Hazel, how exciting to hear about your plants! It's a fun and rewarding time of year, isn't it? I have decided not to worry so much about doing every little thing just so, Dawn is right, plants know what to do. SO. . . when did you plant your beans? You planted them from seed? What kind of beans did you plant? I have not planted mine yet but I'm thinking I need to get on the ball and do it. My habit has been to plant later rather than earlier and I think this year I want to go ahead and get my seeds in the ground. It's been a warm and extremely dry season so far. I'm sure the colder temps are behind us. I just want RAIN!! My carrots and beets are still very small but at least they have a start. Everything I started indoors, under the grow light I made, I have been very disappointed with. (I'll do my homework for next year) I started my squash and cukes too early and I'm just going to plant seeds next week. My tomatoes are just pitiful. I think I'll keep trying and transplant next month and have a back up plan with plants from a nursery. Here in Enid, my selection is a joke, BUT actually last year I bought a cherry tomato plant, variety unknown, that just did marvelous and produced till the frost did it's number on it. My peas that I planted from seeds look great, about 3" tall now. Oh how I hope I get a good crop, I do love my peas! My asparagus is doing superb, almost all of the 18 or so plants have sprouted and are now covered with soil and hay. Dawn, you have so much experience and give great advice, so here is a question for you. What kind of Espoma do you use? I had no idea there were so many to choose from! I also have been adding organic material to my soil for the past couple of years and it's looking good, I would like to simplify things and get a basic fertilizer, if that is what can be done. I have had the OSU extension center do soil sample tests on different parts of my garden for a couple of years and my pH is good, just needs a bit of potassium and phosphorus, which I have added. Thanks all!

Leslie, Yay! Planting time is my favorite time of the year, or at least it is until harvest time replaces it as my favorite time. Have you reached your average last frost date yet? I know it must be getting close. My average last frost date is tomorrow, and I may celebrate that date by putting corn seed in the ground so we'll have Early Sunglow corn to harvest by Memorial Day weekend. Well, assuming pests, tornadoes, hail, flash flooding, wildfire or some other natural disaster don't get the corn plants before the corn gets harvested. On nights our forecast low is in the low 40s, I usually worry a little about the tomato plants but don't cover them up. If it is forecast for the upper 30s I do cover them. Around here, a forecast low of 38 or 39 usually gives us an actual low near freezing accompanied by frost. I just finally got around to potting up sweet pepper plants yesterday and they really won't even be large enough to put in the ground for another 2 or 3 weeks. I started hot pepper seeds very late, so they likely won't be big enough to transplant outside until latest April or early May. I am not rushing to get beans, squash or anything else into the ground....at least not for another week or two. At our house, we really have reached "dead week", which is the quiet week or two in between the point where all the cool-season crops are planted and it is still too cold/too early to plant the warm-season crops. Well, except for tomatoes....but they always get special handling here. I use dead week to work on larger projects....like planting flowers or cleaning up and mulching perennial/shrub beds, or starting seeds of warm-season flowers in the greenhouse. It is kind of drizzly here this morning, although I think the afternoon will be a lot warmer, sunnier and nicer. It might be a good afternoon to garden, but I won't be out there in the garden because I have to be someplace else. I hope to spend all day out in the garden tomorrow though. The flower border needs weeding, mulching and some pruning back of last year's dormant foilage on some of the perennials. The tomato plants that already are in the ground sure do look happy. Even though we didn't get much rain, the rain water always seems to perk them up and make them happy. The smaller tomato transplants grown from seed are in the greenhouse today to keep them out of the wind. If the wind has dropped significantly by the time I make it back home from a funeral this afternoon, I might carry the tomato seedlings outside to the patio for a couple of hours of sunlight and wind exposure. Dawn

Sheri, Oh, it is drooling time! I can almost taste the tomatoes now. Sungold, Persimmon, and Cherokee Chocolate: if you get ripe tomatoes from only these three plants, you'll still think it is the best tomato year ever, taste-wise! Dr. Wyche's has always done better for me than Kellogg's Breakfast, but then, I have grown DWY for 5 or 6 years and KB for only 2, so Dr. Wyche's has had more opportunity to excell. Dr. Wyche's is a pretty heavy producer, and quite tasty. It also shows great disease resistance. Black Zebra is a very attractive-looking tomato, but I think Black Pineapple (which isn't really black at all, LOL) tastes much better. I have found that every striped tomato I've ever grown has looked pretty, and tasted no better than average. (sigh) Well, I take that back--the one exception is Indian Stripe. Momotaro is probably better than Carmello, but then, your taste buds and your growing conditions are different from mine, so you might find the opposite to be true. I do not think you'll be disappointed in Momotaro though. I haven't grow Alamo. We love Sweet Million and Black Plum, which is our postal carrier's favorite tomato ever since I started sharing them with her several years ago. You're right--I wasn't wild about Japanese Black Trifele, but lots of people love it, so maybe it was just me. Your Mystery Surprise is probably either a tomato that "lost its label" during the seedling growing process, or is from a new grow-out that DJ is trialing and perhaps hasn't even named yet. (I think mysteries and surprises are fun!) Yellow Platfoot Brandywine is yummy, and so is Black Pear. Brandy Boy is the best. If I could only grow one variety, this might be it. There are a few that taste better, but NONE of them can match BB's heavy production and disease resistance. And, even though there are a few that I think taste better than BB, none of them is loads and loads better, only a little better. I don't think I have grown Black Pearl, but isn't it a smallish tomato, more like Black Cherry? I think it is the Burpee hybrid that is said to taste more like a Concord grape after it has been refrigerated? If it even comes close to tasting like Black Cherry, it will be a real winner. I can tell you are ready to get the plants going. Have fun, but be careful and watch the weather. I feel sure we have another freeze or two to get through before Old Man Winter departs and lets us have Spring. I believe you will have more tomatoes this year than last. Remember that so much of last year.....the excessive rainfall, the continual cloudiness, the cooler-than-usual weather all combined to severely affect tomato production. Conditions like that are beyond our control AND exceptionally rare. This has GOT TO be a better year, right? By the way, my little container-grown Better Bush tomato has now formed a second tomato--it is just about the size of an English pea. I am so worried that a deer or possum will get my first green tomato that I carry this plant inside every single night. (It is a very pampered plant at this point. Today I picked up a lady bug and carried her over to the plant and sat her on a leaf, just so she could cruise around and hunt for any bugs that might be lurking.) I am SO looking forward to the first ripe tomato this year. No matter the size of the tomato, we always make BLT sandwiches out of the first ripe one. I am going to order the world's best bacon from the New Braunsfels Smokehouse just so we'll have it for the first BLT of 2008. (Most of the time we eat healthy and watch our fat intake and cholesterol, but BLT time is special and calls for a total disregard of the healthy eating rules!) Keep me posted on how planting goes. I hope to be out in the garden a lot the next few days if the weather cooperates. We are under all kinds of storm watches today, tonight and tomorrow, but so far everything is going either a couple of counties west of us OR a couple of counties east of us, and that's OK with me. Dawn