Thanks so much, Planatus. Plan to order a few of your suggestions. Last fall, I also broke up several clumps of chives and had phenomenal reproduction and enjoyment of these ...and still do. I had never had such huge and tender chives before from these plants that I have had for decades. Seysonn, the onion sets' growth in our HT last fall did not behave as those in your experience. It seemed as though the HT going into fall/winter was absolutely perfect. Only 4-5 bulbs out of hundreds had a flower stalk. Even those were tasty in fritattas. I let them bloom to see what would result. One had black seeds which I will test for germination in a week or so. Some folks say that growing zones make a huge difference in alliums in High Tunnels, while others say it is more of a light availability that determines the production of the fall-winter crop. Some suggest recording light availability by automatic methods, but I am not so advanced and am still learning how to assess soil moisture levels by inexpensive/simple tests. Our central KY site had abundant fall-winter-spring sunlight this first trial. Have sent emails to a few HT gurus in hopes of learning more about allium possibilities. One person in MN-zone 3-said that by using agribon and a plastic sheet over wire hoops, he managed green onions thru the winter-alas, variety not specified. He also did not say if onions were grown thru the 1 ml black plastic. Have not yet located a USA High Tunnel(unheated) index that covers varietal issues for all zones for all vegetables. Not even all states have a listing yet, from my research. Our NRCS HT has only a single 6ml cover, so it's results may be varied compared to the double layered HT covers used by many commercial growers. This fall, plan to do a short row with garlics, elephant garlic and one with yellow potato onions, as well as the winter onions planatus mentioned. Will do a similar test planting outdoors in a raised bed. We eat alliums at least twice a day-so can never have too many!

yep same here with the cilantro! i got...maybe two small tufts of cilantro for all the seeds i planted....and now its spindly and flowers. a few weeks ago i just started some more and they sprouted fast. i think they will grow better with the later planting. its a little cooler here than there...but snow peas are defintely something i am planting now. this is a good time for them, but i can plant them whenever and they do good, or ok, any time of year. re: mulch - i have no idea if this will work better, but i am thinking it will. i think i let the sprouted carrots dry out, or??? idk exactly, but i have hard time with carrots, they are fussy. in general mulch is like magic and makes happy happy plants. =)thick mulch...freshy mulch, yeah plants really respond to this well. it also keeps it from drying out, holds in moisture, thats basically why i am thinking the carrots will like it. just to sprinkle the seeds on top. and totally with the staggered plantings, its for sure the way in this kind of climate. have keep it in mind to resist the temptation to start too many seeds of any one thing. i have a limited amount of space that is greenhouse like...so its always packed with plants.i move things around, outside and inside, and do some container gardening with that. this is the best way to get good peppers here and tomatoes.... i have a lot of potatoes in the ground, but i started some off in a big container and they are doing great. i might start off a couple of those....with different edibles. they are just plastic tub storage containers with holes drilled in the bottom. been throwing the potato bits in there as i use them, and the ones in the container are looking better than the ones in the ground. they are digging on the fluffy soil. and some of the stuff i plant would seem way out of season...i experiment a lot. and planting odd things at different times of year, some of it works and some of it doesnt. i dont always get as many sprouts but usually will get a few of each planting time (about once a month i start different seeds)...and then have some plants in different stages come spring. and i over winter whatever i can inside...get peppers ripening at variety of times.

Thanks for the response. I guess I'll just try it out and see. The main reason for planting was to cover crop them, I was just hoping for a bonus pea harvest out of it. I wasn't going to wait till late march though, I was going to plant this weekend. Also my Zone 5 is a warm zone 5. I'm in a nice protected valley, we are on average 10 degrees warmer than on the hilltops around here, which I would consider a true zone 5. I'm using avalance snow peas which say 59 days to harvest. So maybe I'll get at least something out of them.

What, no Cali gardeners out there? ;-) Beans, maybe, if you plant a short DTM bush variety... but no guarantees. Peas, certainly. When I gardened near Palo Alto, I planted my Fall crop of peas in August. I grew snow peas (can't remember the variety) and "Green Arrow" shelling peas. I was going to suggest that you try this question in the California Gardening forum... but when I checked it out, there wasn't much discussion of vegetables there.