Cat, I always wear a hat outdoors so that I don't feel naked!

I'll start this thread off since I have more comments that are in similar fashion, irrelevant. Now, not irrelevant because I don't have a garden, but because I am probably anywhere from 800 to 1,000 miles to your northwest where Coeur d'Alene has just, officially, had the coldest April on record and Spokane the 2nd coldest April on record, officially.

In my garden for about 3 weeks now have been onions - sets and plants, along with the shallots. Also, I put out a couple of hundred square feet of potatoes - most ever ~ they show not one indication that they intend to break the soil surface anytime soon. Yesterday -- bok choy and lettuce transplants! So far, not a single seed has been dropped outdoors.

It may break 60F today. I'm optimistic!

Now, back to the Colorado gardeners . . .

Steve's digits

I'm in Colo Spgs (6000 ft)
I have planted peas,lettuce,onions,spinach,carrots,cilantro,and arugula.
Everything else I grow waits until May 15th.

Onions, peas, toms (in WOW), spinach. Coldframe doesn't count. This week is carrots, potatoes.

Dan

Conifers and some perennials. :-D

Holly

Peas, radish, onions, potatoes, collards, cabbage, lettuce, beets, carrots, parsnip, rutabaga, endive, clover, chives, nasturtium, broccoli, sweet peas, hops, parsley and chervil. I think that's all for in ground.

Greg

Peas and fava beans. Onion/leek slips ready to go. Reporting from 7,000 feet with nighttime temps in the high 'teens and low 20's, and 50% chance of snow this afternoon, and a sea of 32.00001 F irrigation water to deal with.

Lettuces, peas (twice, first batch never showed up), radishes, onions, and carrots. The lettuces were wintersown and transplanted over the last couple of weeks. Everything else was direct sown. Still waiting on the carrots, but they always take a while. The radishes and onions are starting to poke their heads up. I have wintersown broccoli and cauliflower waiting to go in the ground, but I don't have their home ready yet.

Everything on your list is considered cold hardy - except the zucchini. It will not tolerate frost.

Okay, this isn't scientific or anything, but my rule of thumb is to save all large seeded veggies for May - June. That would include cucumbers, squash/zucchini, melons, pumpkins, and beans. Corn would also fall in that category, though I've never grown it. Peas are the exception to the rule. Those get planted in March - April.

Hope this helps some : )

Bonnie

Oh yeah! . . . the peas. About 10 days ago . . . no sign of them. Usually, I wait for the blooming of the Oregon Grape.

Today, more onion starts and a little cilantro . . .

. . . forgot to bring the spinach seed.

Would you like to use phenological signs to guide your planting, Cat? The link below is often cited even by Cooperative Extension and sustainable agriculture organizations. They are right there in CO.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Phenology

I'm very late starting veggie planting. The plants are ready, but I didn't get 3 new raised beds kits put in till today. I've put in roughly 90 trees, shrubs and roses this spring. Mostly seedlings, but diggin' a hole is diggin' a hole! I'm wearing my gumption thin!
DD graduates later this month, putting down flagstone, we are swamped!
Through my neglect, I believe I've killed my indoor Cherokee tomato seedlings. They dried out from the heat register in the living room and I didn't catch it in time. They are no longer Swap material. 5 tomato plants need staking and I need to get the WOW's going.
The lettuce is doing great. I should have already planted carrots and radishes, maybe tomorrow.
I've enjoyed much of this spring, despite the wind, but look forward to the warm up later in the week.
Barb

So far I have down: Peas, lettuces, spinach (some overwintered, some new), kohl rabi, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, onions - bulbing (both sets planted this spring and overwintered), onions - bunching, cabbage, chard, radishes, beets, endive, pac choi, and potatoes.

Of those the peas, lettuces, spinach, kohl rabi, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, onions, cabbage, both types of onions, radishes, pac choi, and beets have come up.

Amazingly I haven't lost them to some rather frigid nights (at 8200 ft elevation in Conifer). I'm thinking if they survive tonight's forecast low of 18 (due to microclimate we tend to be a few degrees over the forecast lows normally) then they'll be good to go. Have a lot of nights in the extended forecast with lows in the higher 30s so I should see some growth.

Admittedly some have come up spotty and in another week or so if the lows stay high I'll go through and flesh out the plantings with some fresh seed where things haven't come up yet. If the forecasts stay with lows above freezing I'll be putting down carrots and a few other things this coming week.

Thralen

thralen ..... Conifer!!! You are braver than I would ever consider. At 8200ft do you even consider tomatos and if so when and what do you plant?

dsieber: Yes, we do tomatoes. We are lucky in that a good portion of our property faces south (ranging from SE to SW depending on which part) and that we are thoroughly in the 285 corridor valley (right near a massive cliff face that gives us extra reflected light and heat). That lets us be just a bit toastier than most of the area.

I've had the best luck with the smaller tomato varieties. Tiny Tim cherry tomatoes and Extreme Bush tomatoes give me the best yields of what I've tried so far. I've also gotten some Rose and Moskvich tomatoes as well, although the season ended last year before they got truly productive.

I'll probably give in this year and use some miracle-gro or other chemical fertilizer to boost the growth speed on my tomatoes, peppers, and cucurbits(squash, melons, and such). I haven't used chemical fertilizers on my tomatoes in the past. I'm hoping that if I do I'll be able to get a full harvest on them.

I normally pre-sprout some inside as starts and plant them out the first time the weather forecast is showing a week with 40 as the lowest low. I also pre-sprout some seeds to direct sow as well since sometimes if I lose the starts, the ones started outside will still come through for me.

I'm still trying different varieties to see if any other tomatoes will do better than the ones I listed previously. This year I've got three new varieties to try (Juliet, Eva Purple ball, and Debarao). Essentially if the seed site I use has any tomatoes on sale and they are relatively short span to maturity I'll pick them up to try. So it is still a work in progress.

Thralen

spinach is already up, onions (no show), mustard greens. Lettuce - the neighbor cat used that bed as a litter box.

I'll try to plant onions today - the weather for the next week looks a whole lot better with lows in the 30's, not the teens.

I'm sitting on my hands here. I am in Brighton. (NE of Denver if you didn't know) Although my yard has too much shade, due to massive old Elm trees, I have pretty good luck here. A lot of bad weather seems to go around us. The night temps have still been getting into the 20's, so I'm trying to be patient. I covered my zuccini last night. I also drug about 10 potted plants into the house, just in case we got frost. But I'm losing patience.

Steve- I checked out that phenolgy site. I do have a patch of Lily of the Valley to tell me when to plant my tomatos. But that has to wait until the plant swap anyway, so patience will be mine!!!!

Gjmancini, I have had the same problem! Nothing I tried kept that stupid cat out of there. I had wooden skewers sticking up all over the place. My veggie garden looked like some kind of Vietnam booby trap. Finally got fed up with scooping poop out of there every day, and went by the feed store yesterday. Bought a whole roll of chicken wire, and covered the whole thing up. It's raised up a bit, but when the sprouts get bigger, I'll have to remove it. Usually they only go in there when there is open dirt, so hopefully by the time I have to remove the chicken wire, they will no longer be interested.

I have heard mothballs are a deterrent for cats and other critters.
Just today, put seeds in: carrots, lettuce, beets, kale, swiss chard. Hopefully tomorrow: peas, onions. Got a little carried away on the onions, 4 varieties. May have some leftovers.

I'm putting tomatoes in the ground this weekend (with wall of waters). I also picked up some columbine and a hosta at a sale last weekend - is it too early to get those planted too?

Also - when does everyone sow their squash and cuke seeds around here? I could even utilize some extra wall of waters if those would help protect the sown seeds.

Snapdragons/kale/cabbage/kohlrabi all transplanted, joining the lettuce/onions & shallots. Still no sign of the peas planted 2 weeks ago.

Today calendulas and gladiolas can go in but forecast is for rain. In fact, the rain is in the forecast for each of the next 5 days. That will be an end to our pleasant Sundays, I guess.

Steve

I tried to divide a monster 'Blue Hill' salvia yesterday, the thing was 1 ft by 2 ft. I dunno how that will work out because all the little divisions look awfully droopy.

pumpkin2010, for planting summer squash and cucumber seeds, I usually put them in the ground the last week of May - for winter squash, which takes longer to mature here, I'll start the seed indoors next week, and set the plants out the first week of June - depending on the forecast.

I use cocoa shells to keep the cats from using my garden beds as litter boxes. They are crunchy and sharp and the kitties do not like to walk on them. I like them too because when I spread em around or water the whole back yard smells like chocolate and they decompose nicely and add organic matter to my soil. They also work very well with keeping slugs at bay. I usually just use them when I plant or as needed during the season.