That is really too cold for seedlings. Isn't 30F below freezing? Growing on a windowsill is really not sufficient light to start seeds. They will get leggy and week searching for the light. Is there no way you can hang a simple plug in flourescent light fixture. Look through the forums some people have ingenious ways of doing this. Yes tomatoes are about the only ones I know of who benifit from being planted deeper. Many others will die if treated that way. If you want to put them outside you will have to use a cold frame, but that requires constant watching that it doesn't get too hot or too cold and your plants will need to be watered often. I'd say for another year check out the winter gardening forum.

Hi Saintpfla It has been very hot here in Orlando too, everyday somewhere about 90. If you have the veggies in containers, move them under a shade, make sure they are getting light. When I lived in Arizona, I usually moved them under a tree or a porch. Sometimes I covered my tomatoes with cheesecloth or any lightweight material. Linchat If you are handy, you can build a shade on top of your raised bed. You can use 4 strong poles and put shade cloth on top. You can get all your supplies in any big box store. There are different shade cloths, you can pick the one that is most convenient for you. I had similar set-up, and when it was winter it took it off. It was hold with tie-wraps. I hope soon we get some relief. Silvia

Carol, So far this morning, we're down to 34 and were forecast to go to 40, which makes me wonder how cold we'll be this weekend on the night forecast to go down to 32. When I see those large, healthy tomato transplants in the stores here in March (and, this year, in February), my home-grown transplants always look so small by comparison. I sort of have a little moment of panic, something like "oh, my plants aren't ready yet!" and then I calm down and get a grip and remind myself they shouldn't be ready yet because it isn't planting time yet. By the time that the proper planting time arrives, my plants will be just the size they should be. It's the same thing when they have squash plants the size of my hand (which, for early March, isn't actually good since the ground is too cold for those plants) and my 'plants' are still seeds in the packets. I have about 2/3s of the tomato seedlings outside where they sit on the concrete patio and soak up sunlight all day and then go back onto their tables in the garage at night. On the days that they have full sun instead of cloudy skies they seem to make some good growth and have great color. They're not ready to go into the ground yet, though. For one thing, the wind would beat them to death right now. I strategically place them where buildings protect them from wind right now, but once they're in the ground, they are on their own. I do hope we have a nice, steady warming trend the rest of this month so the ground warms up earlier this year than last year, but I expect we still have another couple of cold fronts coming even after this weekend's cold front passes. I'm be happy even if our last cold weather is the Easter freeze as long as there's nothing else really cold after that. El Nino is slowly receding so we still have cooler and wetter than average conditions forecast through at least May, so it doesn't make any sense to me to rush the warm-season plantings along. Dawn

Like the Bhuts, the Uba Tubas seem to take their sweet time putting out fruit and take a while to ripen. Worth the wait though.