If I had the option of time, I would have done the same. I'm still holding off until this coming weekend for any planting. And the kicker....my peppers are way healthier than my tomatoes!!! Go figure,,,but I only sowed seeds I had this year trying to clean out my seed stash. Guess the pepper seeds were better than the maters.

I DO have cukes, squash, dahlias and vinca's inside under lights so I'm ready,,,,as soon as it warms up some!

I think you made a wise, forced choice. Keep us posted so we can all guage from your success?!

Carol, I repotted tomatillos and peppers today and will do eggplants tomorrow. I do hope that next Sunday shows a forecast with no low temps. I am so ready to get the garden planted. I started okra inside and think I will have to start over as a couple damped off and several have some kind of tiny black soft bodied bug.

Carol, now I feel like a wimp because I chickened out last night... and I'm much further south than you! I'm wildly torn about putting the tomatoes in the ground tonight. I bought a row cover this weekend that will let me cover one row with 6-8 degrees protection, so I could get at least half of my tomatoes in, but I am weighing the cost/benefit of getting them in the ground four days earlier versus exposing them to colder temps that might set them back. Ugh! What to do, what to do?!

Carol, I hope that your forecast doesn't change too much. My forecast low for the coldest night already has dropped from 39 to 37 to 34. I wasn't happy with a forecast low of 39 so am considerably less happy now that it is 34. Last week they said 34 and we went to 28. Without reams and reams of floating row cover, my garden would have been toast.

I'm glad you put those tomato babies in the ground. They need to get busy growing and I am sure you'll be able to cover them up well enough to protect them during this week's cold spell.

Paula, This is one of those years when you just almost have to flip a coin and let the coin toss decide whether you should plant or not. All my tomato plants that I am going to plant are in the ground and I have had to cover them up for a couple of days each week since they went into the ground. I think I only put the last ones in the ground a day or two before last week's cold front. I just didn't want to wait any longer. I still have the backup plants too, so they are sort of a security blanket at this point. They and I are sick of this crazy weather.

Dorothy, I potted up all the back-up tomatoes and some of the pepper plants this past weekend and all the remaining pepper plants and related fruit (ground cherries, cape gooseberries, huckleberries) will get potted up to larger containers today. If I have time, I'll pot up the rest of the warm-season flowers too. This hurry-up-and-wait planting season is tiresome. I have some okra volunteers popping up in the big garden. If they survive this cold front, I'll dig them and move them to a spot where they'll have room to grow because they are coming up in a potato bed. It is sad when the ground is warm enough for okra volunteers to appear but we still are facing potentially freezing overnight lows.

I am climbing the walls while waiting and waiting and waiting to be able to finish planting the garden.

Mia, It is hard to decide, isn't it? I am much further south than you and we went to 28 degrees last week and I have been covering up everything in advance of our weekly cold fronts. At this point, I don't think you should feel like a wimp. Look at the weather OKC has had in the last week! There's nothing wrong with protecting your plants. Listen to that inner voice and if it is telling you not to plant yet, trust your instincts.

I had potato plants covered with row cover (two layers of it!) that is supposed to give them 6-8 degrees of protection last week when our forecast low of 34 turned out to be an actual low of 28, and the potato plants suffered some freeze damage on the upper portions of the plants. I was a little surprised to see that, and it make me glad that the tomatoes and corn had the 10 degree stuff over them. The rows of potatoes that did have the 10 degree row cover weren't damaged, but I don't have enough of it to cover up everything with it. I've never had potatoes damaged under that row cover before so suspect our temperatures at the ground level in the garden were even lower than the 28 degrees recorded on our thermometer which sits 5' above ground.

With our current forecast low for Thursday night at 34, I'll be out covering up everything and hoping the low doesn't drop significantly lower than forecast again.

If I were in your shoes, I might just wait and plant after the cold spell since the daytime highs aren't going to be very high during that cold spell. The row cover keeps your plants safe by holding in the heat, but with highs in the 50s and possible cloudiness, there won't be a great deal of heat for them to hold in....except the heat from the ground.

Dawn

Carol, some of the pepper seeds you sent me already have fruit on them.

Larry, That is great on the peppers. I tossed my entire flat because it looked so bad when I came home after only being gone a couple of days. I didn't replant, but have bought a few since then.

I did plant tomato seed and have put the first transplants in the ground. Today I was gone about four hours and the ones still in pots just looked terrible when I got home. They were a little too dry and the sun is hot today. I watered them good and most appear to be coming out of it.

One day it is so hot that the ones in the pots are cooking, and the next day the ones in the ground are in danger of freezing. I see that they have now lowered my forecast. The lowest is to 35 for Thursday night, but with rain.