Don't feel left out, Leslie. I've felt the same way for at least a month. This spring has knocked me a bit off balance, too.

Last year, at this time, our squash, melons and pumpkins were already taking over the garden...This year? Heh. Not so much.

I am still planting Tornadic Tomatoes and I get a fall seed catalogue! I didn't even know they made those!

Leslie, I know it seems crazy, doesn't it, but it is time...and for folks further north and further west, planting time is painfully close cause those areas tend to get the autumn freezes earliest.

I was thinking about this on Sunday and thinking I should dig out the seeds of the tomato varieties I intend to grow for a fall harvest and get them started. I haven't done it yet.

I think the late spring has us all off-balance. I keep looking at the calendar and thinking, in a most bewildered way, "how can it possibly be June already?" It is making me crazy. I feel like I am out of step with the calendar this year.

wbonesteel, My squash, melons and pumpkins are just starting to run and climb their trellises. It seems late, but then I have to remind myself we had freezing temperatures and frost during the first week in May, so of course everything is late. That doesn't make it feel any better though.

And, y'all know, most of us are the lucky ones. We haven't lost our homes, vehicles, landscaping, gardens, and even pets, family members, friends, etc. to severe weather. While we may feel out-of-sync this summer, I cannot imagine what life feels like right now for gardeners who have been left homeless and gardenless. Gardening can be incredibly therapeutic and healing, which they need, yet they are unable to garden right now, and they certainly have much larger issues to deal with.

luvabasil, I got the Territorial Seed Company's fall and winter catalog today. Is that the one you received? They have had a fall and winter catalog for at least the last 10 or 12 years, and maybe even longer. I've only received it for the last 10 or 12 years.

Flipping through it gets me into a fall gardening frame of mind.

For anyone who is reading this thread and saying "Fall tomatoes?", I'd just like to explain them briefly. The tomato plants that are lush, gorgeous, flowering, setting fruit and oh-so-beautiful in June are not likely to look quite so lush, gorgeous and beautiful by late July or early August. Not only is our intense heat and sunlight very hard on them, but so are the multitude of pests. So, lots of gardeners start over with fresh plants for fall, generally planting them in a different location from the current plants. By the time the spring-planted tomato plants are starting to look really awful by, let's say, late-August, the recently-planted fall tomato plants either already are setting fruit or are just waiting for temperatures to fall into the right range for fruit set to occur.

You don't "have to" start over with new fall plants if you don't want to. You usually can carry plants through summer and into fall here most years unless a huge insect or disease outbreak occurs.

The recommended planting dates to put fall tomato plants in the ground are July 1- July 15. Now, the order is exactly opposite of the spring planting dates. With the summer/fall planting dates, the folks in northern and western OK put in their fall tomato plants according to the earlier dates and the folks in southern and eastern OK put in their fall tomato plants by the later dates. People in the middle of the state choose a date somewhere in the middle of the range of dates recommended by OSU. I have found that the stores here don't seem to heed the OSU-recommended dates and often don't have fresh tomato plants for fall until mid- to late-July.

What I have found is that most years, my spring-planted tomato plants simply exhaust themselves fighting the heat, wind, hail, pests and diseases all summer, and also exhaust themselves by producing tons of fruit, so that fresh, new plants usually perform better for me than spring plants carried through summer and into fall.

I try to keep the spring/summer plants going as long as possible so usually I still am harvesting fruit from at least some of the spring plants while just beginning to harvest some from the fall tomato plants.

When choosing varieties for a fall tomato harvest, you increase your odds of success if you choose early varieties or even mid-season varieties, but not so much with late-season varieties....unless you are growing in containers and can move late-season varieties into a greenhouse or sunroom to keep them from freezing in autumn.

Further south of us in central TX and southward, where the heat generally arrives earlier than it does here and lasts a ridiculously long time in summer, their tomato production often is shut down pretty early, so for them, fall tomatoes are a second chance to get more fruit once the temperatures are cooperating. The further north you go, and this is especially true in OK, the less imperative it is to have new fall plants as you often can carry the spring plants throughout the season with some judicious pruning at mid summer to force them into a new vegetative growth spurt.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OCS Map: Ave Date of First Fall Freeze