Okay, I have been experimenting with this for years. I'm way south of you, but I live on a mountain side, so I have mostly cool weather all summer (about a week of temps approaching 90 in the day, a month of 80s in the day, nights always in the 50s and 60s, 40s in May and September). Normally, for warm season crops, I plant the shortest DtM (days to maturity) varieties--tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn (rare, I hate to fight the raccoons), etc. I no longer even try melons, and have no interest in cowpeas or okra. :-) But you are asking about cool season crops. Yup, that's the majority of my garden, as the long, cool autumn before a hard freeze makes the cool season crops a joy. First of all, lettuce, radishes and spinach planted in the spring are going to bolt around mid-summer, even in a cool summer. It's a day-length thing, not temperature, for the most part. A few lettuce varieties have been bred/selected to hold longer before bolting, but I haven't seen great holding in spinach. Plan to plant again after the summer solstice. However, things will not grow as fast as the summer is winding down as they do when it is winding up. I have struggled with counting back 60 days from first frost to plant my 60 dtm lettuce or spinach and it just never matures. While you are learning the best practices for your area, I suggest you plant maybe 4 feet of seeds every 2 weeks up until you reach that (for example) 60 days before first frost. Keep note of it (I don't have a garden notebook, bad gardener, but I write this stuff on my wall calendar and have a stash of old calendars on top of my fridge) and you'll have a better idea of the planting window next year. Swiss chard and perpetual spinach are good spinach substitutes for mid summer. Both of these are basically beets selected for stems (chard) and leaves (perpetual spinach). I'm not a big fan of the stems, so I grow beets for a version of perpetual spinach. I rarely harvest the roots, but we do eat the greens. They also hold well into the cool season. If you like beet roots, plant again after sumer solstice to have nice tender roots at harvest time in the fall. Mulch thickly and you should be able to harvest the roots up until your soil freezes (or you can harvest and hold in a root cellar or your fridge). Turnips are also good for greens and the roots hold well in the ground until hard freeze. Again, plant after summer solstice. Winter radishes also go in after solstice. These are the Daikon radishes, but also Spanish black, German beer radishes, etc. These tend to be harvested much larger than spring radishes, and the ones I have grown are quite mild in the fall. Covered with mulch, they keep well in the garden until the ground freezes, and can be kept in a root cellar or refrigerator. My solution for cabbage and carrots is just the opposite of my warm-season veggies. I grow the long-season varieties! We like big fat carrots, so that works well. I don't rush to put them in early, but they can go in before my summer planting weekend (usually Memorial Day weekend or the weekend before). I've never had success with the early cabbages, but we've had some memorable January King cabbages that were just fine cooked, shredded for cole slaw, or shredded for sauerkraut. And again, they hold well in the garden until hard freeze. Oh, and we are a family that goes against the norm, even my kids like Brussels Sprouts (harvested after a frost and roasted, not boiled), so we have also grown those for late harvest. I have a nine-pack of Falstalf to go in next weekend, in fact. Need I say kale gets the same treatment as these other cabbage-family crops? I've tried Napa cabbage a couple of times without success. I'll have to take my own advice this year and plant a few every couple of weeks after summer solstice. BTW, deer LOVE, LOVE, LOVE members of the cabbage family. Rabbits do, too. I am learning to love rabbit fence (which keeps old fat chickens out of the garden, too) and re-mesh cages. Good luck with your cool-season garden! Catherine Here is a link that might be useful: Baker Creek's Radishes, many winter

Yeah, the doors falling off the hinges of the cabinets is what really makes it suck! I voted for you! There are worse kitchens! I'll keep my kitchen photo to myself! Good luck!

~ Container Count / Zone Wars ~ Zone Wars Summary: Zone 4 . . . . . . . . . 295 Zone 5 . . . . . . . . 1,627 Zone 6 . . . . . . . . 1,717 Zone 7 . . . . . . . . 1,185 Zone 8 . . . . . . . . . 506 Zone 9 . . . . . . . . . . 12 Total Containers: 5,342 Good morning, winter sowers! Pixie_lou - please check your total - you post 270, but I've got you down for 370. Book junky - please check your total too. I've got you down 183, not 158 (your previous post said your running total was 175). PS - there are no measly containers! Click the Container Count / Zone Wars Spreadsheet to see the container count in detail.

~ Container Count / Zone Wars ~ Zone Wars Summary: Zone 3 . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Zone 4 . . . . . . . . . . 443 Zone 5 . . . . . . . . . 3,144 Zone 6 . . . . . . . . . 3,596 Zone 7 . . . . . . . . . 2,184 Zone 8 . . . . . . . . . . 936 Zone 9 . . . . . . . . . . 182 Total Containers: 10,497 Good morning, winter sowers. Hope everyone is enjoying the spring and getting lots of gardening done! Welcome to the count Nana8! Click the Container Count / Zone Wars Spreadsheet to see the container count in detail. ~ Happy Sowing Everybody ~