George, I know that if you were starting plants for yourself, you wouldn't be starting them now....just like y'all know me well enough to know I generally don't start seeds until February. It did take me a few years here to learn the best time to start seeds because at first I started them in late January like I did when we lived in Texas, and that's too early for our area even though we warm up fairly early some years. I'd have tomato and peppers plant that were 18" tall before it was warm enough to get them into the ground. Even in those years when we warm up early, only the days tend to be warm or even hot and the nights still tend to go below freezing. If I plant too early, I pay for it by having to cover up plants on freezing nights for weeks, and that gets old. Ironically, the county in northeastern Texas where the master gardener who was on TV this week is from is under a Winter Weather Advisory and very well may have some sort of wintery mix including snow, sleet or freezing rain as early as Saturday or Sunday. I hope his little seedlings (they looked like pepper seedlings too) get to come inside from the greenhouse to stay warm....or he might run up a big bill heating a greenhouse in those conditions. Apparently my garden's problem is that it does not sit on a pile of rocks, and now I'm wishing it did. Maybe I could fix the drainage issue by excavating soil and putting rocks beneath my garden! Really, the problem is that the neighbors property is a lot higher and their runoff drains onto our property, so I can't fix that. Since their property sits so high above ours, even my raised beds can stay too wet because their water runs off/seeps underground for weeks in heavy rainfall years and then wicks up into my raised beds from the grade level soil. I am glad we're about to get cold. We have had some very, very warm days here scattered throughout December and January and my fruit trees are budding and trying to bloom too early....same story as every other winter here, so I'm hoping a good, cold arctic blast will tell them to 'chill out' and slow down a bit. Dawn

Peppermike, There are some things that are very misleading in this world, and I am convinced that "zones" are one of them. Zones do one thing and one thing only: they tell you how cold it might get in the winter, and some plants are hardier to lower temps than others; this number is used to choose perennial bushes, trees, etc. that won't die if it gets to the low temp in that zone. IE you wouldn't plant a palm tree that is hardy to zone 9 in Denver's 5 zone. MOST sites will link your "last frost date" to your hardiness zone, but I don't think this is accurate since I had last frost dates over a month apart when I lived two hours away in the same zone that I'm in now (can you say microclimate?). Ask local gardeners (search gardenweb for someone in your zip code or a neighboring zip code). Also, with all the "global warming" madness, some people think that the zones need to be adjusted. However, we've had nothing but colder and colder, longer and longer (funny, the earth's temperatures have been cooling for 10 years, so it really makes perfect sense) for the last couple of years, so hardiness zones ain't all they're cracked up to be. You need to find out when your last frost date is for your area, and can do that by calling a county extension office--they should also be able to tell you if you're in or near a microclimate, which may or may not effect that last frost date. I'm sure you could also find that information on the internet if you just search key words of "last frost" and your zip code--it may take a couple of hits, but you'll get there eventually. The websites will rarely be as specific as to if you have a microclimate (which is why I first suggested calling your county extension office); in my zip code, there are actually three zones, so I really have to hone in on where I am. If your peppers were not wintersown, but were sown indoors, then you'll likely want to wait 1-2 weeks after the last frost-free date before setting them out, but you can begin to harden them off before that--don't throw 'em out in the sun, but shade at first, then dappled shade (like under a tree), then more sun, and only for a few hours at first, gradually working up to leaving them outside overnight during those days after the last frost. Indoor-sown peppers are not frost tolerant, so don't push it. If you find that you have planted them out and it's supposed to get below 35 for some freaky reason (will somebody PLEASE ask Al Gore where all this "global warming" is that he promised us???), you can cover them with milk jugs if they're not too big, just make sure the plastic isn't touching any of the leaves. You should also throw an old blanket or something over the row to protect even further--you sure don't want to lose them after all your labors! Good luck!

April 15th is the date that I think I've heard for a very long time. If so, I bet it's likely to have changed now that the weather patterns have changed so much. I wonder if that is still the average, if you look at just the last 10 years. I'd also be interested in how far off last year's "late freeze" was from that new average. Was it a late freeze or a premature warming, and has there been similar but less severe patterns similar to that in the past 10 years?

Robert, I agree. I do have my greenhouse semi-stuffed with overwintering herbs, fruit trees and ornamentals, including two gigantic brugmansias, so that gives me something to play around with and might possibly keep me from starting seeds too early. However, give me a week of sunny, pretty weather (we have sunshine today, yay!) and I'll start getting the itch to plant something too early. It is good that Christmas is approaching. All the pre-Christmas preparations usually keep me too busy to start seeds early even if I'm dying to start seeds of something/anything. The week after Christmas is dangerous for me because the holiday is over, I have time on my hands and the seed-starting materials and seeds start showing up in local stores. It helps if that week is really cold as it allows me to talk myself out of starting aything too early. Kim, It might have been the squash thread. I don't remember but I'll look for it if I have time this afternoon. I do like High Mowing Seeds. Their quality is good and I like their commitment to growing organically, etc. I have a stack of catalogs already, and I know for sure I've gotten catalogs already from HPS, Wildseed Farms, Totally Tomatoes, Vermont Bean Seed Company, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Pinetree Garden Seeds, Dixondale Farms (onions, leeks, shallots, etc.)....and there's probably others that I'm not thinking of at the moment. Most catalogs seem to arrive between Thanksgiving and Christmas nowadays. For a long time, the always arrived the week after Christmas. I had a few arrive extra early this year---HPS always sends the first one in late summer (maybe August or early Sept), and Dixondale Farms usually has theirs out sometime in early November. I think Pinetree has been earlier than Dixondale the last couple of years. Some companies only have websites now and have dropped their paper catalogs, and I don't know how they works for them as a business stategy. I tend to forget about the ones that don't send out a paper catalog. Johnny, Usually, Glenn Drowns has Crookneck Milo at Sand Hills Preservation Center, though he only has it in the years when he was able to raise enough to sell. When you grow your own seed (he also has some contract growers), your offerings depend on whatever crop successes you had the previous year). They didn't have any in 2015, and their website isn't updated for 2016 yet, but you might keep an eye on their webpage when it starts updating, which sometimes is in late December and sometimes in January. It is a home-owned and operated company, and is not their primary job, so things get updated in the winter as time allows. How in the world they manage to keep so many heirloom poultry and heirloom seed lines going in what is a side business is completely beyond me....they must not ever sleep. The next best option might be Seed Savers Exchange. I don't remember if I've seen it in the public catalog, but for some time it seems like they've had Vilgore Crookneck, which I think is listed under grains or sorghums in the member listings. I don't know if it is the same as the Crookneck Milo you're looking for. It is unlikely that either of the two sources I mentioned would have 50-lbs. available. Often, with these old heirloom grains, you're lucky to find any of it available at all and usually have to start small, grow your own and increase your own seed over the years. Bon, I wonder why the websites you were visiting weren't working properly? Maybe it has something to do with the timing---many haven't updated yet, but generally they offer what I am looking for every year, so I can order off of last year's listings (if they aren't sold out). The ones that update later than January tend to miss my business as I mostly order early or not at all. More seed catalogs arrived in today's mail, and usually when the paper catalogs arrive, the websites have been updated too. That's actually what got me started ordering the other day---the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog arrived and I flipped through it for a while and then went to their website and ordered what I wanted. I knew I needed/wanted to order some True Black Brandywine seeds and it was easy after that to pick up a couple more tomato varieties, which actually made me sit still long enough to make my grow list. There wasn't any point to randomly ordering tomato varieties that sounded interesting unless I had my grow list already made and was committed to actually planting what I was going to order. Amy, I like all those and so many more. There's so many companies that I like that I couldn't possibly order from all of them every year, so I try to spread the business around. However, there's a few that I absolutely do order from every year, and high on that list is Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. If it was the only seed company I patronized, I'd still be a happy camper. They have a great selection every year and their varieties always do well for me here. Dawn