Mok, I don't know about your area, but around here (Ft. Smith) it is hard to find good fall plants, and by the time they put them out it is too late to start seeds if they don't have what you want. I feel better about starting seeds in the summer of what I want for fall. There is a good chance you will need some screen wire or something else to protect the seedling till they are large enough to plant, and still you may need some row cover to protect them.

Larry

I live in Ardmore and there is not much for sale as far as fall vegetables go. Many fall plants can be started from seed around this time. Check out the OSU Extension fall garden planting guide, it's an excellence resource. I start cuttings(clones) from my healthy tomatoes for fall plants. I could always make a few extra if you live close by.

Rick

Have you checked the local Wal-mart, Lowe's or Home Depot stores? If you check ASAP, you might still be able to find something. We were at the Wal-Mart closest to us on Monday (It is across the river from us in Gainesville, TX) and they had the following plants: tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, winter squash, all kinds of herbs and some annual flowers. I bought six tomato plants and for the rest of my tomato plants for fall, I'll start new ones from cuttings from the current plants. When we were at Home Depot in Gainesville a week before, they had all those plants too. The problem with all these stores is that they usually clear them out of the garden center right around the Fourth of July....cause, you know, the way we celebrate July 4th in this country is we fill the stores with back-to-school and back-to-college stuff the week of Independence Day.Who needs lawn and garden equipment, supplies and plants...or outdoor toys or pool stuff? Let's ruin everyone's holiday by shoving back-to-school down their throats in early-July. I don't know why the retailers can't read planting guides and offer the plants gardeners need at the right time for planting instead of a month too early or a month too late.

I checked the six tomato plants I bought carefully to ensure I wasn't bringing home any disease or pest that my garden doesn't already have. Often, the plants in the stores at this time of the year are spider mite infested just from the stress of being held in the pots so long and from being in a hot, dry, sun-filled concrete area where they bake all day long. The ones I found Monday were pretty healthy plants.

I haven't been to any of the garden centers in Ardmore in the last couple of weeks, so don't know what anyone still has on the shelves, but when I was up there a couple of weeks ago, both Lowe's and Wal-Mart still had tomato and pepper plants, squash....and one or the other of them had cukes and okra. Two weeks is a long time in summer, though, and those plants may have been thrown away or something so they could rush the Christmas trees into the stores earlier than ever this year.

I've never seen cool-season plants arrive at the stores near me in time for the proper fall transplanting time so I just grow my own from seed. If you wait for the stores to get the cool-season plants in stock, you might be putting them into the ground a month late. Our weather is so erratic that you might get away with planting late, especially if you can cover up the plants on the first cold night or two. Often, down here in southern OK, we get a cold front with the first frost followed by another month or two of non-freezing weather, so if you can get your plants through that first cold front, you still have oodles of gardening time left.

Dawn