So far we win the prize.....and it is not a prize I want to win. Nineteen degrees here and I suspect my onions are probably dead even though I covered them up with hay quickly last night as I was leaving to take dinner to the firefighters. I didn't cover up anything else but all my tender seedlings and potted plants were either in the house or in the well-insulated barn/garage. I hope to carry the plants back out at mid-morning after it warms up, but whether or not I manage to depends on the fire activity. Before I can spend time gardening, gotta run outside and feed all the animals, and then make a run to Sam's in Sherman to get several dozen cases of water and Gatorade and tons of food. It is taking a lot to keep our firefighters, now in their 8th day on this brushfire, fed and well-hydrated. Mitch, usually potatoes will regrow from the tubers even if all the foliage is blackened and frozen. After last year's late freeze in May, it took mine at least 2 weeks to put out any new growth though, so you may have to wait a while to see the recovery. I hope all the plants that were covered up made it through the cold in everyone's yards the last couple of nights. Jay, if y'all are "late" with the corn that far north, imagine how my "old farmer" buddies who normally plant corn in March are feeling now.....everyone's going nuts! Now that a rapid warm-up is expected, let the planting games begin! Scott, I'm not optimistic either. Know I'll lose the remaining fruit at 19 degrees. The native pecan trees haven't leafed out yet, but I bet they will soon. I'm ready to plant anytime after today but the ongoing wildfire issues will dictate my schedule, unfortunately. I'm running out of creative cooking ideas for large crowds, too! On the other hand, hungry firefighters will eat anything you cook for them. Yesterday, I made 15-bean soup, cornbread muffins and mixed berry cobbler. Today I am so tired that they may get hot dogs and chips. :) I think one of the other wives is going to make chicken spaghetti today in anticipation of the FFs needing to be fed tonight, so that takes some of the workload off of me. So far, our evil little fire has burned an area almost 6 miles long and 4 miles wide, but we've only lost a couple of houses and a few outbuildings. I need for these wildfires to stop so I can get back to my gardening. At least with a hard frost on the ground, we shouldn't have fire issues until the morning sun burns the frost off the grass. Dawn

I have Early Girl, SuperSweet 100, Delicious, Brandywine, and Everlast for this year. Early Girl always does great for me, I found some Bloody Butcher seeds at a nursery and next year I will start those from seed since several people have written that they like it better than early girl. I bought the Early Girl a few weeks ago at a local nursery and it is now showing bloom buds coming. I bought the SuperSweet100 at the same time. I hope its good, I alway get Sweet 100 and got the supersweet version by mistake. I found a Brandywine seeding at one of the nurseries I haunt. Cost me 3.89 for a 3 inch tall plant. grrrr I found some seeds and next year will grow my own. I have never grown this and am seeking an old fashioned beefsteak that is sandwich sized and has flavor to die for. I hope this fills the bill. A different nursery had Delicious. I had seed planted for this one but I bought it anyway. It is showing yellow on blossoms and it is only about 12 inches tall. So it is showing promice for early production. I found some Everlast seeds in the burpee specialty seeds at lowes and bought both packets they had. I have a couple of seeds planted. I cant find anything about this variety on the web. According to the package its a long keeper. Next year I am going to start all seeds in January. Does anyone have any extra Brandywine Suddeth seeds (sp) for trade? Or any other huge yummy op indeterminate for trade? I can go thu my seed box and see if I have anything to interest you. I know that I have Oregon Spring and a few other cold crop ones. pam

Quick update - I thought I had made it past that frost/freeze last week, but when I came home after work on Thursday I found my Black Krim was completely wilted. It was the only plant without a WOW, and died because of it. Sounds like some people try to let them grow back, but this didn't look like it had any hope, so I pulled it out. Also the top of my Brandywine that was sticking out the top of the WOW froze and died. I pruned the top off, including the main growth tip unfortunately, so hopefully it will be fine without it. I was able to replace my BK with a Stupice. Wish I had exchanged that faulty WOW earlier, though this definitely proved how useful they are. Forecast shows a low of 33 for Friday (5/7), so I guess we still aren't in the clear yet either. Looks like we have a few nice days early this week at least. My Sunsugar and Fourth of July in my Earthbox both have several green tomatoes already...

This thread began as a means to discuss the issue of Sunset zones. The secondary motive was for me to try to explore the notion that elevation is a factor to RMG but not the only factor. Over the course of looking at climate data, I discovered that annual precipitation and the time of its occurrence may be a defining feature for the RMG region. Aridity cannot be the only determinate or wed all be over in the Southwest Gardening forum. Previous and somewhat naively, I had thought that these evergreen mountains here and there indicated that there were areas with rather high rainfall amounts - what hadn't quite sunk in was that while that is true, these areas were all at elevations where gardening becomes impossible. I began wondering if a particular native plant species was representative of the broad RMG region. I'm no expert on native plants so this was a fun exercise even if it doesn't appear to be absolutely successful (perhaps, an impossibility). It seemed to me that the Arrowleaf Balsamroot was most broadly representative. I'm hoping that other gardeners are giving this some thought and will comment. By way of encouragement, my question now is - what the heck is this plant whose image is used here on GardenWeb to represent Rocky Mountain Gardening: Steve