prairiemoon2, Most seeds prefer to germinate in warm conditions even if they are cool weather crops as you can see in this table: Depending on what county you are in, you can use the extension information on planting dates from a state adjacent to you with a similar hardiness zone. Which county are you in? If you are in the western third of the state, you can utilize Vermont and/or New Hampshire. If you are in the middle third, you can utilize New Hampshire and/or Connecticut. If you are in the eastern third you can utilize Connecticut and/or Rhode Island. Usually you can check with your state's Extension Service. Each county should have it's own Cooperative Extension Office which provides free publications and information for the asking. They will have valuable vegetable/gardening tables available specifically for your area determined by universities and horticultural research scientists who have collected data from growing those crops in your state. Your tax dollars are already paying for this service so you may as well get some use out of it. Vegetable Planting and Planning Calendar for Missouri (download the pdf) complete with spring and fall planting dates (underneath the spring planting dates for appropriate crops), how much to plant per person, etc. They can also tell you the average last frost date for your area and ideal planting times for specific crops and varieties in your area. See how detailed this example is:

I've gone mad for poppies but have found 2 kinds of seeds that will be similar to the one I want most now. If you like tiffy's poppies, you might look at seedman.com as I saw some that looked fringed like that. Just put in a small order but got two kinds of red and a couple other things. Their website is a little tricky to navigate and order from, and since I had a keystroke logger scare (think I'm clean but not 100% sure), I didn't want to give out my cc info online any more places right now. BTW watch for a popup that looks like Windows (and yes, I'm using Firefox) and tells you you have several trojans and viruses. DO NOT click on fix it. ONLY click on the x to close it and sometimes they can even fool you with that. After that scare, I made sure my definitions were up-to-date and ran another scan and the auto one since. Came up clean, but you can never be sure. So seedman has a way you can place your order then change a dropdown menu to call (they will send you their 800# by email). It wasn't very user friendly, he says they're going to another system, but if you poke around there enough you will find a whole list of plants and lots of exotic ones. I couldn't find what I wanted anywhere else, even onestoppoppies.com. To tell the difference of an annual vs. perennial. I don't know. But Bluestone has the livermore, and they sell only perennials (got some of those seeds from seedman). I think all the Shirleys are annuals as well as the little corn poppies, purple grape poppy. But I'd have to look up the Orientals. The blue Himalayan is perennial but too tricky to try to grow right now. I've been looking for a nice purple bachelor's button like I saw growing in my friend's garden with blue. seedman has a pretty one of those, so I plan to try it, looked all over the web for purple bb.

Winter is not a whole lot of fun for the veggie gardener, so I putter with houseplants and indoor herbs, look at the photos of the year's garden progression. I begin dreaming again about next year's garden and make an impossible planting calendar, choose the seed packets and marvel over the "new introductions" in the catalogs (mentally going bankrupt). I am always too early or too late for fall harvesting, even if I buy starts of cabbages, brocc's, and their ilk instead of planting seeds. It's a Carolina fickle-weather thing, not the gardener's fault [relax tie-tie]. So, I toddle off to the grocery store/farmers' market and miserly buy the more southerly grown veggies. I can still snip parsley, rosemary, thyme, and chives from the garden, and then there are the Mason jars in the basement, hot peppers and garlics on their strings, and frozen blocks of summer's harvest to make plenty of hearty meals through the winter. The bright side is that there aren't any bugs out there to contend with, the weeds are all asleep, I don't have to wear a sweatband and full-body sun-screen, or have short dirty fingernails, and nature is letting the leaves fall nicely for mulch and compost. And, there is always next Spring. Gardener's are forever optimists you know. Nancy the nancedar

I've sown fall peas starting in mid-late July every few weeks until mid-August. The later sowings sometimes don't flower & provide pods, but the pea greens are good in stir fries & salads. Just finding garden space can be tricking in mid summer, so I tuck them here & there more often than a row. Self supporting types have grown well in between my strawberry rows. Ciscoe Morris said that someone shared at one of his talks that for summer sowings of peas put in ice cube trays then plant the ice cubes out for the cooler soil. Seems that it wouldn't last long, but might be interesting. I've just watered soil well & let drain about an hour, plant peas, mulch & water the next day, too. Seems to work for me, but I don't have full sun all day either.