Yes. I've been growing vegetables year 'round here for the last 10 years or so. "Non-tropical" vegetables can take light frosts. There is a large list of them. Almost all root vegetables, however these must be started off in warm soil. I sow them in early September. Cole Crops - brassicas of all kinds, many Asian vegetables -pretty much anything related to cabbage or mustard. Cauliflower is a pain here. swiss chard, and many lettuces and other greens withstand frosts. I just planted lettuces today at church from transplant. I am no longer planting anything from seed. Seeds need about 70 degrees, in general to germinate. Tenting them can help. Row covers work unless it is freezing rain. I use old sheets for row covers in my raised beds, and I usually use plastic on days like today, to heat up the soil a bit and get better growth. I never ever let the plastic touch the vegetables because that burns them when it freezes. I keep frozen wet out of the vegetables, that kills most back to the ground and they don't aways recover. I protect spinach and lettuces. There are a variety of ways to do that. I protect only when there is going to be a hard frost, artichokes, and celery. I use old tree pots for this, or heavy cardboard boxes (not in rain) with a rock or brick on them. You can use heat sinks if we get a 2 week freezing period like we sometimes do. I like bricks the best for this. I just plop them inside the tented veggies. I make tent frames out of PVC and use them every year. My favorite covers for the garden are old shower curtain liners. Heavy plastic! You can also build units around existing beds using bales and plastic held with bricks . I have done this. The most important thing when tenting or protecting is getting in the light and ventilation. You can't let the heat build up for any length of time (under a tent it can easily get 20 degrees warmer than outside, if it's sunny)...so you have to be present to tend the vegetables. GGG

? ? ? ? ? I did not see any plant on the chart that bears 'all season' and don't see how I implied it in my post. The one that bears the longest on the entire chart is squash and it only bears for 3 months in her area according to the chart. What the chart does help with is figuring out what to plant and when so you can have a variety of things in your garden at all times. Even the chart isn't the answer to everything under the sun. As an example, my local ag. office says we can plant bush beans here from May 1 - Aug 15 in 2 week succession plantings with harvesting June 21 - Oct 15 (and even plant as early as April 1 using row covers). But if you look at the zone 7 chart (my area), it only shows planting May 15 - July 15 and harvesting July 1 - September 1. BUT, the chart is certainly better than nothing and I think the chart is a good start to figuring out what & when. Especially for a beginner like me who had no idea that broccoli should not be grown in the heat of July in my area. I am growing for immediate consumption, not for storing, so I also did not want gallons of bags of beans (or squash or tomatoes or whatever) ready at one time. I wanted a little bit of a bunch of different things ready each week. I did not want to have beans for dinner *every* night !! One thing I had to figure out was what was the recommended number of plants for 2 people to be able to consume the harvest. Also what plants are a once and done plant and what plants would be able to be harvested over a long period from one plant. For example, squash are harvested for a long period from one plant, but bush beans are for approx 2 weeks. Carrots, obviously, once you pull the carrot out, that plant is done ... no more producing carrots from that plant, LOL. So ... 1 or 2 squash plants might be enough for 2 people for the whole time squash produces. But 20-80 carrot plants (depending on how much you like carrots) split up into succession planting of 4-10 carrots every week from Feb 1 - Mar 1 would give you 4-10 carrots ready every week once they start producing, rather than 20-80 carrots all ready at one time. I also think 40sf is a good size. Our garden is 36sf (11 feet of that is trellised) and I have open squares that I am not using right now. But as soon as I am able to plant fall crops, I will have room to start them early without pulling a summer plant. Then as the summer plants are done I can start pulling them and planting more fall crops in those newly emptied squares to extend the harvest. The one thing I would like is a little more trellis for my summer plants (or I need to cut back on my tomatoes some!!). I would like to have some honeydew on the trellis and more cantaloupe, and maybe have moved my watermelon to the trellis(?). As it is now, my trellis is divided as follows ... each square is 1 plant per square except the cucumber ... 6 squares tomato (2 each of 3 kinds), 2 squares cantaloupe, 2 squares squash, 1 square cucumber (2 plants in 1 square). However, in the fall, the only thing I have planned that will be trellised is peas. I doubt I need 11 squares of peas !!! That being said, this is my first ever garden and I am very excited about it so far. I have read a lot on the internet, but I am not an expert ... I haven't even eaten my first veggie yet !!

Dave, No hard feelings. I wasn't upset at you. I was totally aghast about my spectacular blunder! My California sense of humour doesn't always come across, I reckon. I was tired and botched up the whole post big time, and GW doesn't have the setup where you can edit your posts or even delete them...too bad. But that's why I said, "No Duh!". If you hadn't have written that, I might not have caught it, so thank you. Below is the LINK to the LSU website that I forgot to add in my original post, from which you can access the tomato site. It is an AGRICULTURAL site, so is for farmers mostly or folks who grow 'HOOGE' gardens (and lots of folks down there certainly do too). The fertilizer amounts in pounds surely were for composted manures, but the 8-24-24...dunno??? It does seem a bit much for 350 sq ft., now doesn't it? I will say, however, that those amounts were not meant for boxed-in little potagers or small kitchen gardens (like mine), and that is why I added the part about "or according to package directions per plant". I guess that did not come across either, and I am sorry. Yes, this was specific for Louisiana tomato farming or big gardens but COULD apply to others in the deep South where it is hot and humid and have difficulty with tomatoes setting fruit, as many Tom-types won't set when temps get above 90 degrees. If you are having trouble with that, check with your local Farm Co-ops and Agri-centers. Even most local nurseries will suggest varieties best suited to your local. (The site makes suggestions for Louisiana only). I just forgot to put the freaking link. Again, I apologize. It is not in my normal range of blunders, but guess it is NOW. hehehe I have to say though that it is good to add a side dressing 3-4 times during the growing season, of either compost or composted manure to give your plants a boost. There are packaged tomato foods that are formulated for tomatoes. I have tried the Ortho (once) and it works great. Keeps your plants healthy and producing big toms all summer. * Make sure you give them ample water if you use chemical fertilizers or they will burn up, especially when the temps go way up. Glad some of you went to my Photobucket website to have a look-see. Thanks for the nice comments. I actually forgot I still had that link to it. Sure glad I didn't have anything risque on there! Zooks! (JK) I have to take pain killers every four hours just to function and it does make me a bit goofy. Hope there are no big goof-ups on this post. ~ time to go eat my humble pie, Annie "sweetannie4u" Here is a link that might be useful: Louisiana State Univ. Ag Center

Thanks for all the suggestions! bmoser, I never knew tomatoes could be grafted. I'll have to research the rootstock. Carolyn, I have relatively cool summers -- I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area, warmer than the city but not as hot as the inland valleys. I don't grow a lot of big tomatoes because it usually doesn't get hot enough. This year, I planted my first transplants out on Feb. 19 in walls-o-water and got the first fruit in mid-June (Black Krim and a mislabeled one that was supposed to be Black from Tula). But my first tomatoes of the season, the first week of June, came from cherry tomatoes I planted in mid-March (Sungold) and a 45-day early tomato (Forest Fire). I've been growing only one crop because, once they start producing, it's all I can do to eat tomatoes, give away tomatoes, think of other ways to use tomatoes...but then I reconsidered when a local nursery advertised a talk on "winter tomatoes" (from gotonursery.com) a couple months ago (more info at the link below). Unfortunately I hurt my hand and couldn't play in the garden for a month, so I didn't plant any, but I'd grown some of the early varieties recommended and didn't love any of the ones I'd tried (except Galinas, which is a wonderful cherry and produced 1366 fruits last year, until the end of Oct.). Anyway, last year my largest long-season tomato was Aunt Ruby's German Green, which produced until the end of October, though they did get smaller toward the end. Ernie's Round and Aunt Ginny's Purple produced progressively smaller fruit until about the end of September (with a few very small ones in October). I picked my last Siberia and Early Girl at the end of November (and the last Sun Sugar the first week of December, before the first frost). But this year, I have only Opalka producing big fruit, a Momotaro that hasn't produced much but is still healthy, and 5 types of cherry tomatoes left. Here is a link that might be useful: cold-weather tomatoes