Well Sahira, you've now waited over 24 hours for our internet savvy gardeners and no one has posted a reply. Let me tell you what I came up with: The University of Nebraska at one time had a www.plantguide.com. The WayBackMachine indicates that it was pulled off the net in 2005. That site had something the called a "Planting Date Calculator" and, apparently from what I can read, it was fairly sophisticated and not just some rudimentary list of dates. During the few years it was out there, I guess I missed it completely . . . I checked some ag sites which list farm resources for ALL KINDS of calculators. There was nothing really on planting dates. Something that happens with these university resources is that they are funded by grants. When the grant money runs out . . . if they aren't actually pulled, they become dated and fall into obsolescence. It would be nice if 2008 planting information was specific to the 2008 growing season. Since weather is forto me, at least) to have a hard-and-fast date for much of anything. Oh yes, I know that some folks just CANNOT get a garden in until Memorial Day weekend when they've finally got time to do it. It makes sense for them to have a date specific. Personally, I'm becoming more and more inclined to use soil temperature as a guide for when a seed should go in. But, thatÂs me. A Weather Service website that I came across not too long ago gives ongoing growing degree days information thru every growing season. If the gardener wanted to use air temperature as a guide, one could set some benchmarks based on personal experience or, I'm sure, internet research. But just for the sake of some examples, let's say that I found that 100 growing degree days should accumulate before I put cool-weather vegetable seed in the ground. And, 400 degree days should occur before planting warm-weather vegetables. That website is updated weekly by the Weather Service for some US locations. It would be a fairly easy process to keep track of the Spring weather. Being ready to grab the seed packets and race out the backdoor at the right moment may be another thing. Steve

It would be better to only plant the bigger ones. Do not overcrowd the garden! Use the spacing recommendations that came with he seeds. Watermelon, squash, and cucumber sprawl out and take up a lot of space. You could trellis the cucumbers on the north side of the garden to free up some space. Tomatoes should be supported in cages, stakes or a trellis. Supporting tomatoes will cause them to grow up rather than sprawl out. Give those extra seedlings to someone else who needs a garden (and who doesn't?). Jon

Phygelius is a good hummingbird plant that might like some shelter to hold on to its leaves. It can get large and rangy but could be trimmed and staked to stay in a certain size. They may eventually get hit too hard by winter lows but usually last me a few years. Presently I have one that is several years old. They have a very long bloom season. Other plants that are evergreen but not so much on the flowering as far are hummers are concerned, are Mahonia, Nandina, possibly evergreen blueberries if you get enough sun there- Sunshine Blue, Legacy, and Misty. You need a pollinator so you would need 2 varieties. There is a fuchsia that makes edible fruit called a Honeyberry, I don't know if the flowers are attractive to hummers or not. I haven't eaten them to see if they are good enough to grow compared to blueberries, but they are still expensive so I haven't tried them yet, around $20 a plant also needing 2 for pollination. Here is a link that might be useful: Phygelius

That is exactly what I need.