I was just counting, including this morning, I've had 5 freezes(32F or lower) and 7 frosts of varying severity. My first frost was October 15, the second earliest I've had since keeping track. I feel the opposite about winter, I really want a cold one!

Butterf,y, I do like collecting! Big old house equals big heating bill and lots of cleaning. Did get the cool shelving from a yard sale this summer on the super cheap. My husband is a anti-plant lover so I just keep trying to camouflage my Plants into the decor thus thinking he won't notice too much. I keep away the winter blues by starting seeds indoors right after Christmas! Ralph, I think I have everything prestaged for this first frost. I did pot up each variety of salvias yesterday as backups in case the in grounds don't make it this winter. Im in huge shows up in VA until thanksgiving weekend when I will be in Raleigh.... I always have more room!

Jay, In our area, this morning was significantly lower than forecast. The forecast was for 39, we went to 33 and our Mesonet station went to 29. We have very heavy frost here this morning and it is more widespread than yesterday's patchy frost. They have lowered our forecast lows for tonight and tomorrow night by 3-5 degrees each. In light of the fact that we have gone significantly lower than forecast the last two nights, I am uneasy about the next two nights too and likely will leave everything covered. That's so cool about the Farmer's Market in Elkhart. I like to get my pepper plants in the ground in early May. It isn't so important for the hot peppers as they'll set fruit most all summer anyway, but with the sweet peppers, I need them in early enough to set fruit before the temperatures start causing blossom drop. We get so hot so early here that I always feel like I'm in a race to get fruit set before the hot temperatures start impeding fruit set on sensitive plants. Last week at the nurseries and garden centers all sorts of plants that do not tolerate frost were flying off the shelves---stuff like New Guinea impatiens and mandeville. I commented to Tim that I hoped those people were going to either hold those plants indoors another week or two or at least were going to cover them up. I did hear employees at one Lowe's advising someone not to put those plants in the ground for another week unless they could cover them up to protect them from frost or freezing weather. The seed racks now have lots of empty areas and the outdoor displays of 6-pack annuals were almost bare. If everyone put that stuff in the ground last week after buying it, they may be regretting planting that stuff after the cold temperatures and frost we've had the last two nights. The hot days always are more the issue for me with stuff like WOWs, and also are a reason I prefer floating row cover to covering plants with buckets since the row cover allows for good airflow and you don't have to worry about heat buildup if you leave plants covered for multiple days. A lot of people here didn't plant many cool-season crops this year--maybe onions and potatoes--and that is unfortunate because we are having a terrific cool season crop here. I expected a long, cool spring so planted enormous amounts of cool-season crops. The only warm-season crop in the big garden is tomatoes, and then I have corn in the corn cage across the driveway from the big garden and in one of the new garden plots out back. That corn out back was seeded on Sunday and is sprouting under the floating row cover. I've never had this many cool season plants in the ground before. They fill up most of the big garden and they fill up the two beds left in the old Peter Rabbit garden next to my garden shed. While I didn't expect it to stay so cold so late, other than the fact that it is annoying to have to cover up the plants, I kind of like this weather merely because it has kept the cool-season crops growing so very well. I enjoy the challenges that come with gardening in our erratic climate. It certainly teaches a gardener to develop a deeper understanding of their weather and how to deal with its ups and downs. I always tell my friends here in our county that if edible gardening was easy, everyone would do it....and everyone certainly does not. I always thought I was a good enough gardener when I lived in Fort Worth, but living here has made me a much better gardener, and some of the lessons learned have been painful ones. Experience is a great teacher, but can be a cruel one as well. Dawn

Jan, I understand about the swift transition from 'too cold' to 'too hot' as it commonly happens here as well. I often skip most cool-season crops completely because about the time they are almost ready to produce something, our high temps zoom up into the 90s and I get zero harvest from them. This year, I was feeling cocky because in last year's cool/wet spring/early summer, all my cool season crops produced the best crops they ever have, so I planted tons of cool-season crops this year. I know that by doing that, I probably jinxed my own garden. So, this week we've been as cold as 39 degrees here, and as hot as 86 degrees, and I've been watching the broccoli and Sugar Snap Peas very carefully. So far, all is well, but at a garden a couple of miles from us, their broccoli is bolting and flowering and that is making me nervous. I cannot think of anything in cow manure that would hurt your potato plants, especially since you are so experienced at using manure properly. I am assuming your cows don't eat any forage crops that have been sprayed with a clopyralid or aminopyralid product. Jleroi, You're welcome. I'm the queen of links, with at least one link in my 'memory bank' for every occasion. As hard as it is to find something reliable online that you can trust, I try to remember and share the ones that apply to a given situation. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: MEN Article: Herbicide Contamination in Manure, Compost