You can generally plant cucumbers and beans through about the 10th of July and still get a yield out of them here in Michigan. Your climate might be a littler shorter than mine here in Detroit area, but not THAT much.

You should start cabbage and broccoli now for transplant out in about a month.

Carrots direct sow about July 10th. Turnips and head or romaine lettuce around July 20th. Leaf lettuce and spinach are best to wait until mid-August when the warmest nights have passed, or they'll probably just bolt to seed. You can make several succession plantings of leaf lettuce, spinach, and other super-quick greens, until about September 15th. I also like to make a late last planting of spinach and romaine lettuce around September 10th-15th to overwinter under some straw mulch or with the help of a winter rye cover crop -- these grow extra fast ain spring and give really nice crops -- I don't always have the time or space to do this, but it works pretty well most years, especially if you have consistent snowcover to protect them during the worst of the winter cold.

A LITTLE shade, in the hottest part of the day, will help cool season crops a bit, but more than that, and they'll just be super wimply, spindly, more susceptible to diseases, and will still bolt anyway, because it's not ALL that much cooler in the shade on a hot day, and not any cooler at all under trees, sometimes even warmer, at night.

Based upon what you're telling me it's feasible to plant warm weather veggies now, cucumbers and green beans. In fact, based upon what you've told me now is the ideal time to plant them.

You also told me that it's possible to plant Romaine lettuce, carrots and turnips in July. My question is although you've recommended planting carrots, turnips, and romaine lettuce now, will the weather be too hot for them to grow and survive?

Do you know of any tricks/tips to cool cool weather veggies down in hot weather?

Essentially although you say I can plant them now, should I hold off and wait until later in the summer
when it'll have cooled down, or will it not make a difference whether I plant them now or later towards the end of summer?

I want to plant radishes and cabbage too, however would now be a bad time to plant them? Would the weather be too
hot to plant them?

Many of the seed packets say that you can plant cool weather veggies in mid-to-late summer, but I've no clue what constitutes as mid-to-late summer in Michigan, as
I haven't lived here in years.

Would it be too late to plant cabbage now or is it too hot to plant cabbage now? My concern with planting in later when it gets cooler is that it won't have enough time to mature before the snow sets in. The reason being is because it takes 70-90 days for the variety I have to mature, which doesn't include germination time, which is 7-10 days.

I'm afraid if I plant cool weather veggies too soon, they'll just die due to weather being too hot and if I plant them too late then they won't
mature until after winter starts, which at that point, they'll die due to weather being too cold.

I bought a few cabbage plants and just this week put them in my raised garden. I would say it's too late to plant cabbage from seed, but if you get some cabbage plants, you will be ok.

It's not too late to plant beans from seed. You can buy some tomato plants and put them in your raised garden. You should be able to get starter plants at a reduced price anywhere that sells them. You still have all of July and August for hot weather.

Here is a veggie planting chart for Michigan. You should find it helpful.
http://www.migarden.msu.edu/pdfs/Table6VegE1769.pdf

Good luck!
V.

Here is a link that might be useful: Veggie chart

Hey, after all my eloquent prose on building raised gardens, I find that you have abandoned the idea. OK, but your don't need to "build" a frame for a raised bed... just pile the soil high enough to drain to the surrounding area.

Cool weather crops have 2 seasons, spring and fall. Plant brocolli etc. from seed now, to set out in August. Leafy veg can be planted almost anytime if you give them some afternoon shade (below taller plants if you want.)