In response to Glo47, I am in zone 7b, which is close enough to your zone. I planted a few tomatoes and peppers last weekend and they survived the frost just fine because I covered them. I always plant a few early in hopes that I get a tomato by June 1. Still hasn't happened. :). Anyway, I try to plant close to April 20th for tomatoes, but I watch the weather carefully and wait until there are several warm, dry days in the forecast. I don't usually plant peppers or eggplant until the beginning of May (the pepper plants this year are an exception, an experiment). I used to plant them with the tomatoes but they really prefer warm weather and seem more likely to go into transplant shock when I plant them in April. These are all plants that I started indoors. I'm with seysonn that if the plants have already spent a lot of time outdoors then they can be planted in the ground earlier. As for squash, I direct seed as early as possible so that the plants get a head start before the vine borer invasion. I started all of my squash seeds the weekend before last. A couple have emerged. The others will come up when they're ready. I've never had a problem with the seeds rotting. -Anne

Getting rid of the gray includes a bottle of something. Sorry. I've got that problem too. It's creeping up from the sides. This was a recent post I made to my blog. It was in response to a few new followers asking me to explain what it was and how I built it. The Cloner. As for blueberries, the easiest method I know of for propagating is to use hardwood cuttings just as the plant is coming out of dormancy in the late winter/early spring. This is wood from last season's growth. You take cuttings 6-8" long, scratch the bottom end of the cutting to reveal the whitish-green under the skin of the branch, and dust with rooting hormone. I use a powder. Some don't scratch the cuttings, others do. I've found using my fingernail to remove the bud at a node is the best way to do this. Then, stick the cutting in a 50/50 mix of sand and peat. Water it well, making sure the mixture drains. Put it outside in the shade. In my zone, I have to cover it with plastic to hold in moisture. Two liter containers work great. I usually have a few empty ones by this time in the year. Then just leave it alone. There should be enough moisture, but you'll want to check once a week or so. When new growth on the top begins, chances are it's rooted. With a clear container, you can see the roots. Plant out in the early fall. You can use this method for almost any deciduous woody plant. Let me know if you have any other questions. Here's a link to basic propagation methods.

IM kind of a pretty big weather buff myself, and I used to get the farmers Almanac every year when I was a kid as well. I still read it for its interesting articles and such, but really, I think that NOAA is more accurate as its more science based rather than on oak trees "MASTING", and other natural phenomena. For those who don't know, "MASTING" is when Oak trees overproduce acorns to an extreme amount. It happens from time to time some reigons, and from what I understand is more of a survival insurance than anything else. It happend here several years ago, and it was truly incredible just how much acorns were produced. Never seen anything like it. I think it only occurs once in like every 50 or 100 years or something. Anyway...Im still hoping for ( and thinking that it will be) a very mild winter here in the Mid Atlantic. We have the same saying here... " if you don't like the weather in D.C., wait 5 minutes". While its not that volatile all the time, we do get fairly changing weather for large portions of the year, especially spring and fall, we were can see 40 degree differences in temps in sometimes as little as 12 hours. The D.C. Metro just does not have the same winters it had regularly up until about 1995 or so. The last true "blizzard" we had here was in 1996. The rivers and bay almost NEVER freeze over anymore in the last 10-12 years here, and seeing teens and low 20's in the city is fairly uncommon anymore. Were also very hurricane prone here as well, although most are usually strong to medium tropical storms by the time they get here. Although, a few have come through at a category 1 hurricane, like Isabel in 2003. IIRC, it was finally downgraded to a Tropical Storm once it moved just north of the D.C. Metro. Its center passed about 50 miles due west of downtown D.C., putting most of the metro area, and most of VA/MD in the worst / strongest quadrant of the storm. What a trying 24 hours that was. I rode it out in my east facing 14th floor apt at the time, and we had sustained winds up there of 82 MPH for several hours at the hight of it, with a gust to 106. That was the gust that blew the anomometer off of the balcony railing. I can tell you the vines that I could not get down, and the 10' river birch in a large half whisky barrel were all defoliated by the winds, and quite a few of the windows were blown out on the east and south facing windows of the high rises we lived in. Im glad we heavily tapped our large plate glass windows up, because those were the ones that were breaking into peoples apts. Anyway, lots of varied weather here. It keeps things very interesting. I just wish we were 1 zone warmer! Who knows, in the close in dowtown areas of NoVA and DC we have moved into a zone 8 in the last 10-14 years, maybe a zone 9 is coming? Im not for "global warming" but man it would be nice to have even milder winters than we do now.

7thLegend, expecting 60 degrees and sunny here for the Superbowl. LOL! Not as cold in February as it used to be though. We will see. Don't place much belief in the Farmer's Almanac. Do they ever predict anything but cold and snowy for the Northeast in February?! As for the hurricane forecast, this certainly has been a very, very strange season! Was expected to very bad, but abnormally quiet! Probably one of he strangest seasons I can remember. Don't know what to make of it.--May be a very late season. Like X-Mas storms?! We had ours late last year--October 31st, name of Sandy.