Nobody in this area of the country will forget that "once-in-a-hundred-years" freeze we had last Easter! I plant by how the weather feels... with one eye on the calendar, but I believe more how soil and air feels and stuff like how far the oaks have leaved out. "Plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear", etc. Frost hardy salad greens were in regular harvest stage and they were all fine. However, I had Black Aztec sweet corn 4 inches tall, assorted summer squash at first true leaves, Red Pontiac potatoes coming up well, all varieties strawberries blooming, figs had leaved out already, Super Sugar Snap peas a foot high... then we're being told it will be 25 degrees tonite!! Ron and I were able to cover most of the strawberries with heavy plastic sheeting (for me to remove early next morning when temp rose above freezing), and I dropped 3 gallon plastic nursery pots over the squash and potatoes (some 8 inches high). Next morning I took mental notes, and I immediately ordered more corn seed. I watched and waited on somewhat damaged squash; they stood still; I replanted beside them, and the new seedlings outgrew those that had "survived" the frost. Biggest potatoes had to resprout and were late and I eventually pulled them to make way for next crop. Those just emerging were fine with the makeshift protection and produced a crop. Strawberries at outside of beds were frozen, but a lot in center were OK... I figgered I lost 35% of the crop. Figs leafed out again and fruited a month late; Peas froze to ground, but most plants sent up base shoots, and I got a crop after all. My soybeans did not come up, and I found them as rotted mush, frozen with their bent necks less than 1/2 inch from emerging! The rest of the seed was planned to follow the corn first of July, but with start-over making corn late, I never got to plant soybeans last year. When I went to plant replacement corn, I kept find roots obviously still alive. I tossed out the first few, but then I got curious and left them in the ground. A fair percentage (35 - 40%??) sent up new shoots and cropped, altho later than the replants beside them. Mostly a nuisance to a gardener, but shows that variety would survive as a species even with a late frost some years. Worse news on trees. No acorns; no persimmons; no tree fruits of any kind around here (except my figs!). Trees did recover but a major amount of wildlife winter food was lost forever. Black walnuts sleep late in the spring, and they were fine. My antique roses (mostly Rugosas, Gallicas, Albas, Noisettes, Hybrid Musk)simply regrouped, leafed out again. The one-time bloomers (Albas and Gallicas) lost most of their flowering capacity for the year; the other groups are remontant; they just regrouped and flowered as usual, but a month later. Most hardy perenniel flowers and bulbs were not significantly affected. Your woodchuck recipe - still laughing! Back in the last century, I was joking about writing a cookbook for sale at local tourist traps: HOW TO COOK YOUR GARDEN PESTS. Most garden raiders can be found in game cookbooks, even a few with more than 4 legs. I did the research, but I ain't crazy about dressing out warm-blooded animals. Dressing woodchucks: The smell, the general ugliness, and that very tough skin that almost repelled my knife. I pretty soon figgered out something else I wanted to do worse that morning... My first almost-dinner woodchuck very shortly turned into deer repellant tossed under the tree where the herd gathers to lay up during the day and plot their night raids on my ripening corn. Assassinated feral cats (my neighbor feeds a population of them!)are also used for deer repellent. Anybody caught playing "lion at the waterhole" with birds at my birdbath will be offered a trail of canned mackeral leading into the Hav-a-Hart and will quietly disappear forever. Possums I drive 10 miles and turn loose; rabbits I just turn out locally. But woodchucks just eat too much too fast, plus they dig under my cages and barriers. One way trip for them, too. Fortunately woodchucks have 3 Achillies heels: too stupid to change their paths once discovered; day feeders so I can find them eating and see where they run so I know where to set the trap; one litter a year, so I can often get Mama and all the kits in 36 hours or so, and they're history until another one moves in. I check DAILY for signs of feeding everywhere I have a crop planted.... sometimes I'm still too late! I would expect them to taste a lot like wild bunnies and squirrels? Confirm, please. My brother in Wyoming supplies us with top-quality venison every year as a Christmas gift, and often include a few other sundry species. But as long as Arkansas whole fryers keep going on sale for 49 cents a pound, the pest cook book will probably stay on the back burner. Gee, not a word about fava beans in this one... note they are still fine today... in 54 degree sun and wind, with rain and cold on the way again... Jan

Paula, FYI, a lot of those ornamental peppers reseed for me. That's one thing about them that I really like. Dody, That should be my slogan "So many choices, so little room", and I should cross stitch it onto a sampler to hang in my potting shed. Charlie, You're welcome. Ask and ye shall receive. Going through the list and researching all those varieties might take you a little while, but it is something to do in the "off season". Chandra, Oh, no, that's not the list of what I'm growing in 2011. It is just the list of my personal favorites. They've become favorites because they tolerate our weather and produce well. After I posted the list of OSU-recommended varieties, Charlie wanted to know what it is that people "really" plant though, so I posted the list so he'd know what I, for one, like to plant. I mean no disrespect towards the OSU-recommended varieties, or the varieties recomended by any other university, like Texas A&M, for example. Even when I lived in Texas, I looked at their list and then made my own choices. While the varieties recommended by the various universities for their areas have been researched, often the research is done more on hybrids than OPs, and often productivity or shelf life gets as much attention as flavor, for example. Remember that university research sometimes is geared more towards commercial farmers than home gardeners. So, I try to choose varieties for our specific home garden that tolerate our weather, produce a worthwhile yield and also, those whose flavor we prefer. Where to find them? Almost everything I listed should be available from one or two or more of the following online sources, or at least they have been in the past. In a couple of cases, there's only one or two sources, and I've listed it below. The websites are my best guess and if I'm off by a letter or two, you can find them by googling. Victory Seeds (victoryseed.com) Willhite Seed (willhiteseed.com) Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (southernexposure.com) Seed Savers Exchange (seedsavers.net) Baker Creek Rare Seeds (rareseeds.com) Totally Tomatoes (totallytomatoes.com) Tomato Growers Supply Company (tomatogrowers.com) Ramapo tomato is available directly from Rutgers/NJAES. Moreton is also available there. I believe Little Lucy okra is available from a couple of places, and one of them is Park Seed. Baby Bubba is available from Burpee. Moreton and Supersonic tomato seed are available from Harris Seed. I get seed potatoes locally, from organic grocery stores in the DFW metroplex and from Ronningers, which has a new website you can find by googling. I'm not sure the new website is completely functional yet. I get my onion plants from Dixondale Farms and recommend them highly. If you are in the OKC-Norman metro area or in the Tulsa metro area, you may find all those same varieties locally, but I can't find all of them here in southern OK. Almost all the tomato and pepper varieties I listed are available from either Tomato Growers Supply or Totally Tomatoes if you don't find them on the websites of the other seed companies. Biker Billy Jalapeno, though, is from Burpee so only available from Burpee and its sister companies. Dawn

Wow, I was on the edge of my seat, reading your story, Marilyn!!! When you have some spare time, (yes, ha ha!!) you really should write your stories down--I think we discussed this one time. Such a book would indeed sell well as most of us humans have a soft spot for animals, especially down-and-out rescue animals. It's hard to believe that little cutie-pie survived and shows how strong he is. I hope you know there isn't one person who would think you tell these stories to make yourself look good because you're not that kind of a person at all, and it shows. Thank you for entertaining us and taking such marvelous care of all of God's creatures! I hope you will be able to give us updates. Oh, my, and I hope your dh continues to do well. I was so fascinated with the kitten story that I almost forgot to comment on your poor hubby! I hope he's up and at 'em soon--though not too soon--and back to working the job he most enjoys.

I am in west central Louisiana, I planted four varieties of thornless blackberries this spring, including 4 sweetie pie's, which were planted 3-4 weeks later than the others in late March, but are still much smaller than the rest although with a more spreading growth habit. The others are Prime-Ark Traveler 6 in mid Feb lost 2, of the 4 remaining 3 are over 36 inches tall), I also have 10 Ouchaita's that range from 2-4 feet in length, and 6 Osages which average a bit smaller than the Ouchaita's, both were planted late Feb. Then there is the Sweetie Pies, each plant (grown from plugs) seem to have more canes growing out (in all directions) than the U of Arkansas varieties, but the chutes are only 12-24 inches long. p.s. I should mention mine are planted outdoors and are irrigated, I am using the cloth style soaker hoses on a timer, currently getting 25 minutes every other day, up until last week it was 25 minutes every 3rd day.