I've grown the Goldstrum variety of black-eyed susans for years, but never cut it back so I can't answer your question. I don't see what harm it would do if you cut back any unattractive flower stalks a foot or so. Just leave the leaves at the base. I always cut the flower stems down anyhow come late fall. Right now in Z7, Virginia, my black-eyed susans are getting a little ragged, with many of the flower petals drying. Maybe in your zone you still have nice flowers. I'd hate to cut mine back if they still had good petals. You could hold off and cut back in a week or two. But from my experience, I really don't think any perennial reblooms with the same quality as its first spring blooms.

I'd plant them now no matter what. Gardening is like life. There are no guarantees. If you keep waiting for the perfect weather to do your spring planting, you'll never get the planting done. How would you feel if you held onto those onions and the carrot seed and didn't plant them and then the rain inexplicably missed you? You would have missed a great chance to get your cool-season plantings in the ground. Onions are daylength-sensitive. They begin to bulb once they are receiving a certain number of hours of daylight per day, whether they were planted January 15th, February 15th or March 15th. To get really big onions, you need to have lots of leaves on the plants when the daylength that induces bulbing arrives. So, while you'll still get onions even from plants put in the ground now, they'll be smaller than they would have been if planted a couple of weeks or even a month ot two ago. But you'll still get onions. And by "sets" I hope you mean the bundles of onion plants sold bare root in stores, and not the little bags of dry bulbs often sold at the same time but generally with a lower success rate. Carrots are a little harder, but you've got the seed, so I say go ahead because time is a-wasting. For the best quality carrots that are sweet and tender, your carrots need to be growing when they are exposed to temperatures between 40 and 85 degrees. In general, for most varieties of carrots, that means you need to sow the seed roughly 3 months before your area's daytime highs start exceeding 85 degrees on a regular basis. For most of us that happens sometime in May or, in a nice cool year, maybe not until June. This year, some of us have seen temperatures dangerously close to (or exceeding) 85 degrees already. Sow your carrot seed into a well-prepared bed. Mist the soil daily to keep it moist. I always place a covering over my carrot bed--a sheet of heavy cardboard weighted down with bricks, a sheet of heavy plastic weighted down with bricks, or a sheet of plywood or a board. This material serves several purposes. First, it holds in moisture and prevents the soil from crusting over and becoming hard. Secondly, it can prevent the seeds from blowing away or washing away. If you have digging dogs or cats, it protects that seed bed from the pets (or small children who might want to dig there). Every morning and every evening, lift the covering and check the seed bed. If it is dry, mist it to restore moisture. Once you see the first tiny bit of green growth, remove the covering but be sure to check the seed bed daily and mist lightly to encourage the seeds to sprout. If you have soil that crusts over, sow a radish seed in the carrot rows every inch or two. The radishes will break through the crusty soil as they germinate, paving the way for the carrots. You'd have to get a lot of rain in a day or two in order for onion plants to rot. Mine have endured 2 or 3" of rain in a brief period of time many years, and survived a 9.25" rainfall that fell in one day in April of 2006. I did have trouble with onions rotting when we had a one-day rainfall of 12.89" in April 2009, but not all of them rotted and I think the problem wasn't so much the rain that fell that day as it was the inches and inches and inches that fell in the next 4 to 6 weeks. So, unless you're expecting epic rainfall and flooding, it is better to take the chance and plant. Last week I sowed eight varieties of carrot seeds before we received 2.65" of rain over a 2 or 3 day period, and while my garden was incredibly muddy, the carrot seeds started sprouting on about day 5 from the day they were planted and over the course of the next 2 or 3 days, most all of them have sprouted. Soon I will begin thinning them out. I feel like if you wait, you're going to be planting too late and your harvest yield and quality will be negatively affected. It is always important to plant cool-season plants on time to the extent that you can because planting even two weeks late will sometimes cause major problems. We have a fairly narrow window of opportunity when the soil temps and air temps are low enough for cool-season crops to thrive, and with the hot temperatures seeming to arrive so early this year, that narrow window of opportunity is about to slam shut. Alternately, you can hang on to the carrot seed and sow them in late summer for fall carrots. "Plant 'em if you got 'em." Dawn

Well, You are more fortunate than I was drewem. When I designed my kitchen, (2005) I did not yet know about Garden Web-so- I did it completely "On my Own". I made TWO, "REALLY BIG GOOFS" Things worked out great, except for a very fancy, 36" semi circle electric cook top I bought and had installed into the granite, (at great expense too, due to the exacting cuts needed for a flush fit for the 36" semi circle). The Granite folks did a terrific job,and it looked great! They did try to get me to reconsider the cook top) but I wanted that fancy cooktop!--but wait-- There's More!!! Goof 1 In less than 2 years that fancy cook top died and the company that made it was out of business! Nobody else made a 36" semi circle cook top--so had to re do the granite!!!! Goof 2 (more related to what You "almost did") Being a "Techie" (Electronic Engineer), The same company that made that fancy cooktop made a popup down draft fan for it. The controls for the popup were built right into the cooktop, fan speed, lighting, etc. How Kewl is that?? Well, 1st I asked the cabinet guy will the popup fit OK in the granite (the cooktop is in a corner at a 45 degree angle). Cabinet guy said , no problem, I asked my handiman that was helping build the kitchen, again "No Problem". I even asked the Granite folks and receive the same reply, "No Problem"! Wife looks at the popup, she says "That Ain't gonna fit". I said I had 3 different people check it and they all say it will fit-----IT DID NOT FIT. The company that made it took it back but gave me "Pennies on the dollar for it, even though they needed it to complete another order near Seattle I shipped it there, myself! So a "Long winded way" to show the value of Garden Webb and the folks that participate here. I'm sure they would have warned me about cutting a 36" semi circle in my granite and to only have one option for a cooktop to fit "Said hole". Second they would have probably pointed out the "shortcomings" of a popout vent, There was no reason to do one, cept I thought it was Kinda "Kewl" and I knew nothing about the performance of pop up vents. Anyway all has ended well, All the other decisions made in the kitchen have been good ones, appliances, lighting, cabinets, granite, etc etc etc. Thanks to the folks on GW the story has a "Happy Ending". They introduced us to Induction, The fancy cooktop was replaced with an Elux Icon Induction Cooktop and wife Luv's it! I'm glad the folks were able to "SAve Ya" before ya made the mess I did!!!! Gary

We also went from a double drop in sink to this Blanco model. Love it! We can now put a full size cookie sheet in the left side, yet still retain the very few features of the things I did like about the double sink. Hand washed items can drain in the basket that comes with the sink. My colander fits nicely in there so I can drain pasta off to the side. The bottle of hand soap is covering up the hole drilled for the soap dispenser on order from Moen. Once we decided on sink and faucet, we had our plumber come out and scope out the new vs the old so there would be no surprise when he came back after the granite was installed. Good thing because our 14 year old shut off valves didn't work that well, so we had those replaced before the kitchen renovation. Also going from one drain to two opened up more space under the sink which was a good thing. I am 5'1" and I have no issues with the depth of the sink, but I also don't spend a ton of time in front of it. Also zero splashing with the sink and pulldown faucet combo. With my old drop in sink and pullout faucet, I was constantly wiping up water all over the place.