Awww, that's nothin'! It can get over 100 here for days in a row, with a "break in the heat" being a dip down to 95 or so. This goes on for 3-4 months, with a long stretch of high 80's / mid 90's book-ending on both sides of the really hot part of summer. I wouldn't worry about those fluctuations from night to day, or day to day, that's natural. All of my plants are fine with it, except Fuchsia, but I don't think you have one of those anyway. Everything else grows like crazy in the summer. Nothing gets much sun from about noon-1:30, except Sans. Everything is placed to get either morning sun before that, or afternoon sun (a lot hotter, especially for roots in a dark pot.) When in doubt, go with morning if you have the option there. Back it up a bit if you see some sunburn. My plants have been outside since mid-March. Once they go out, they don't come back in except in the case of frost which, if I've decided correctly on which day to do this, won't be until winter. The weaker the sun rays are when they get out there, the easier it is for them to adjust to much more sun, gradually as its' angle changes. I know that's way too early there, but just wanted you to have the info for reference, confidence. And I know you're the type to take them in & out, very useful in Z4. Look how lucky we are, supposed to be cooler all week until the weekend! We've almost hit 100 here a couple times already. If you click the blue "monthly" at the left, check out the end of last month.

Tuesday I ate, well, bit into then spit out the hottest pepper I had ever had. It was called a Datil Pepper and it burned my lips for awhile, I would have hated to think what it would have done to my mouth or throat had I swallowed it, lol. I like spicy and hot things but that pepper was to much, I can't imagine anything hotter than that. Jake

OkieDokieArtichokie, It is never too late to start over, but I agree with Dorothy that at this point it makes more sense to buy a few transplants and put them into the ground.Choose varieties with DTMs in the 55-75/80 day range and if you put them in the ground soon, you still could be harvesting tomatoes in June or July. Since we have had such cold weather recurring every week, I imagine the stores have a good supply of tomatoes for all those customers who have had their tomatoes frozen, frosted or snowed upon. If you sow tomato seeds now, putting them in the ground in the next two or three days, they likely won't sprout for 5-10 days, depending on how warm your soil temperatures are. So, let's say they sprout by May 5th. They likely wouldn't be big enough to start blooming, even if everything went well and the plants had no setbacks whatsoever, until mid-June. Most years, the kinds of temperatures (daytime highs roughly above 90-92 degrees and nighttime lows roughly around 72-75 degrees) that shut down good fruit set arrive around late June through mid-July depending on where you are in the state (and sometimes as early as May, especially in SW OK) so you don't get many fruit forming during that time, except during an occasional colder, rainy day or on cherry tomato plants. So, you wouldn't harvest many, if any, tomatoes until fall. That would drive me up the wall...having to wait so long when everyone around me was harvesting tomatoes in June or July. With peppers, if you direct sow hot peppers now, you might be harvesting by July or August. Much would depend on the varieties and their DTMs, as well as how quickly or slowly the peppers germinated. Peppers need really warm soil to germinate and we still are having enough cold nights to keep the soils a little cool. Sweet peppers are a little less likely to set fruit well in hot weather. so either from seed or transplant, you could be harvesting sweet peppers sometime in the summer, but maybe not until fall. It depends on how hot it gets and on how early it gets hot. Just because it is mild right now doesn't mean it won't be 100 degrees in May....or 90 degrees this weekend or next week. Our weather is very erratic. In the future, when you are hardening off plants, if they start looking bad, immediately stop the hardening off process and keep the plants either indoors or in full shade until new growth comes out above the damaged part. Then, you start the hardening off process all over again at 1 hour the first day, 2 hours the second day, etc. Any time the hardening off process is interrupted, like if cold weather causes you to keep the plants indoors for more than 24 hours, it is best to start over at square one/one hour per day again. Tomato and pepper plants lose their hardening-off real fast if you have to move them back indoors during a cold spell. Once damage occurs, more sunlight just tends to intensify the damage if you keep putting the plants outside before they can heal. Would I pop seeds into the ground today? Only if it was my only option. Transplants would be 1000% better at this point. One problem is that the weather models are showing very cold weather late next week. If the models verify, you could have tiny seedlings popping their heads up out of the ground just in time for a freeze or frost to get them late next week...if they germinated that quickly, and sometimes fresh seeds germinate in just a day or two or three if the soil temps are in the right range. Brandywine has superb flavor, and if it produced well at all in our climate, I could be happy growing nothing but Brandywine. It has the best flavor of any tomato I've ever tasted. Unfortunately, it produces very few fruit per plant most years here. I have had one great Brandywine year here, and I think it was in 2002. Most other years, I considered myself lucky to get maybe 6 fruit total off a Brandywine plant. That's totally unacceptable when there are so many other varieties that produce tons of tomatoes. The only Brandywine I grow, when I grow it at all, is True Black Brandywine which has produced really well here most years that I've grown it, producing both early and in quantity. Instead of Brandywine I grow a Brandywine x Cherokee Purple cross named Gary O Sena that was developed and stabilized by Keith Mueller. It has superb flavor, produces early and produces many more fruit per plant than Brandywine does in our climate. Another option is a hybrid from Burpee called Brandy Boy. Its flavor isn't as good as Brandywine or Gary O Sena but it still is very, very good and Brandy Boy produces well in our heat. If I was getting a late start, Brandywine would be the last variety I'd plant because I'd know it wouldn't set fruit until very late summer or fall, and the fruit have a good chance of freezing before they ripen. For fall tomatoes, you want varieties with a relatively short DTM of maybe 55-75 or even 80 days. Brandywine in our climate is more of an 85-95 or 100 day DTM. It simply won't flower and set fruit in excessive heat and guess what kind of heat we tend to have all summer long? I don't know which part of the state you're in, but if you would mention at least your region...central OK, northeastern OK, etc., there might be somebody here on this forum who has extra plants they'd be willing to share. You certainly don't have to give your exact location or town or even county, but you might have a forum member in your general area that might have extra plants to share. A lot of us who grow our own tomato usually grow extras because the weather and the wildlife have so many ways of destroying our plants that it makes sense to raise extras. I'm planning to meet with a forum member on Sunday so I can give that person some of my extra plants as replacements for freeze-killed or frost-damaged ones. You might have someone near you who would be willing to do the same. Dawn

Has anyone found that their heavy, all metal handshower gets too hot to use and, if so, how long does it take before it does get too hot?