I hope to have my potatoes in the ground by Feb.10th or soon after. If you plant them right, in a trench and cover them with a couple of inches of dirt, leaving the rest piled up on the sides, a common practice is to start "hilling" the potatoes by raking a couple more inches of dirt over them as they come up several times to extend the portion of the stem that puts out the tubers. In that scenario, it is easy to just rake dirt over them to cover them up if and when a freeze is forecast. Dirt is a very good insulator and will protect them in most cases. However things differ from zone to zone and from looking at the weather, some of you may have ground frozen as hard as a rock right now. At any rate, as mentioned above, you can plant them before danger of frost in your area is past and when the ground is workable. Onions can be transplanted and set out early too, they are pretty cold hardy. With the excellent help of my 15 year old Grandson I got the spread on the garden and it . I still need ot bed it up into beds or rows but want to wait a few days to see if we get some rain that was forecast and another freeze or two if possible. I am getting eager to get started with the early spring stuff. I will probably go looking for onion sets and other things like that tomorrow. I have planted some pepper seeds in starting trays inside that take about two weeks to come up, and will be planting some select tomato seeds over the next few days. They usually come up within just a few days. Bill P.

Find out your last frost date, then look at the seed packets. It will tell you when to plant in reference to your last frost date. For example, cucumbers packets sometimes say "Plant out starting 1-2 weeks after last frost" or "after soil has warmed to 68 degrees". Well, those two things don't necessarily happen at the same time. Just because you've had a last frost doesn't mean the soil is going to be 68 degrees 1-2 weeks later. That's why I also recommend using your local extension service and your local master gardeners. Your signature says you're in Illinois so you can start here: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/vegguide/ or here: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/veggies. You might also consider going back to your local garden store and getting more information from them. I've found my local garden shop to be very helpful. There are often people there who've been gardening in your area for years and years and have seen it all. That said, I want to make a few comments about your specific questions. - I would recommend starting your cucumbers indoors now so they can start growing before you put them outside after it warms up. You can certainly start them outdoors in a few weeks, but then you lose some growth time. - You can plant the kale seeds directly outdoors now. I've found kale to be quite tolerant of cold and heat (unlike some other cole vegetables). But even if it doesn't have time to mature before it gets too warm, you can harvest smaller leaves (which are very tender and yummy). - For your potatoes (yay for Yukon Gold - great choice!), it depends on your soil. If you have a loose, well drained soil then you can plant them directly in the ground. Otherwise raised beds are good. I don't recommend containers or potato towers, as I've never gotten them to produce much. I'm a big believer in planting stuff directly into the ground, and I have 100% clay soil in my yard! You're in Illinois, so chances are your soil is a lot better than that.

It worked out really well. I hilled the white, red and yellow, and because the purple ones had leaf spots, I pulled them up. The first one had more beautiful potatoes then I can image, and this was without hilling. The second did not have many because the host potato had rotted. All that is left is one white, one yellow and one red plant. I only had five plants to began with. The last three are all hilled now with lots of soil, so I am sure they will make more potatoes when the time comes. I replanted one of the purples so I can get more of those later in the season. I hope that will work. I got them from this great nursery near Sonora. They are really full sized potatoes not just eyes, I planted. I know the website looks like a florist, but if you go in person to the physical address there is a big nursery there. Here is a link that might be useful: They have real seeding potatoes

Keep them in a cool, dry, dark place and they may last that long, especially since you can plant just before the last spring frost in most areas, which for me is March. Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure