Welcome Joanne. I will let our Arkansas gardeners answer you here. I know you must be a zone warmer then me so my dates won't help you much.

Hope you have great success with your first garden.

Welcome from me. I am a flower gardener, so I can't help. Except check out the offer by Trudi on the winter sowing forum. I got my free seeds today and I am so pleased. I enclosed a few extra stamps for a tiny donation. They sent me some bonus seeds. They were in neat little bags with printed descriptions and instructions on saving seeds from heirloom varieties. I also got some very nicely packaged seeds from okiedawn on the Oklahoma forum. I hope I have room for flowers because I am going to have to greatly expand my space for all these heirloom tomatoes. I am also ordering heirloom tomato seeds from sandhill preservation center. I hope it rains this year; water is my limiting factor. I have hot dry summers in extreme SW Missouri. I blame mostly three people on this forum for my tomato problem; I won't mention names.

You're not a great deal north of me--70 miles maybe--so if you wait a week later than me you should be ok.

I plant cold hardy veggies, radishes,lettuce, spinach, onions, beets, carrots, potatoes, peas the first two weeks of March. You would probably be ok up to end of March. I plant succession plantings of lettuce and radishes through mid April.

Then around mid April should be safe to plant beans. Cucumbers and zucchini can go in after midApril to midMay. Sweet potatoes like really warm soil. I plant May 1st to midMay. You could probably go as late as June 1st. Tomatoes I plant after midApril. You can plant as late as June 1st if the plants are pretty big. You may get more late tomatoes than early and midseason planting that late. Strawberry plants can take a little frost, but the blossoms can't. If buying potted plants you can plant later than if buying barerooted, but around last frost for your area would be good.

Good luck with it and come back and let us know how it went.

Sounds like you're off to a great start!

The link below is for the Old Farmer's Almanac website. You can put your zipcode in where it says "change location" close to the top and it will give planting dates for your area taking the moon phases into account. I've got to admit though that I don't know how accurate it is. Maybe some of your neighbors will chime in here and tell us what they think. I was curious myself.

I'm sure you'll have more questions along the way and you're more than welcome to ask here. It can be very helpful to get advice from people with the same climate, pests, rocks etc.

I've grown beans, tomatoes, onions, watermelon, and a few herbs. This year I'm going to try lettuce, turnips, and potatoes. I grew just a few kohlrabi plants last year and I'm going to try some of those from seed.

Just noticed I forgot to post the link. I'm sorry.

You can put in any zip code to get local planting dates.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Farmer's Almanac Outdoor Planting Table

Welcome, Joanne. Looks like you already have good advice, so I'll just welcome you. Be sure you keep us updated on your progress as you go along.

Welcome Joanne,
Wishing you success with your garden.
Bonnie

Thanks for all the info. I ended up going to the extension office and getting info from them as well. I think I have it figured out. Now i just need to get all the seeds and plants. Oh and actually build the raised beds I'm going to be planting in. That's my plans for valentines day.

I was going to suggest going to your local county extension agency but I see you've already thought of that. I got a planting guide from them that gives what you can plant each month. I've cut & pasted from an old post I replied too:

YEAR-ROUND HOME GARDEN PLANTING GUIDE:

***JANUARY***
Cabbage(hot bed), Peas(garden)

***FEBRUARY***
Kale, Lettuce(leaf), Mustard
Peas(garden), Radish, Spinach
Turnips, Beets,*Broccoli
Brussels sprouts, *Cabbage
Carrots, *Cauliflower
*Collards, Onion, Potatoes(Irish)
Swiss Chard
Strawberries

***MARCH***
Kale, Lettuce(leaf), Mustard
Peas(garden), Radish, Spinach
Turnips, Beets, *Broccoli
*Brussels sprouts, *Cabbage
Carrots, *Cauliflower, *Collards
Corn(sweet), Endive
Onion, Potatoes(Irish)
Snap beans, Swiss Chard, Beans(pole)
Asparagus, Sweet Potatoes(in hot bed)

***APRIL***
Kale, Lettuce, Mustard, Peas(garden)
Radish, Spinach, Turnips
Beans(pole), Beets, *Cabbage
*Brussels sprouts, Carrot, *Collards
Corn(sweet), Endive
Sweet Chard
Snap beans, Tomatoes
Cantaloupe, Cucumber
Eggplant
Okra, Pepper, Popcorn, Sweet Potatoes
Pumpkin, Squash(summer), Watermelon

***MAY***
Radish, Swiss Chard, Collard
Snap Beans, Corn(sweet)
Beans(bush lima), Beans(pole)
Cantaloupe, Cucumber
Eggplant, Okra, Peppers
Popcorn, Pumpkin, Sweet Potatoes
Southern Peas, Squash(summer), Squash(winter)
Tomato, Watermelon

***JUNE***
Snap Beans, Beans(pole)
*Collards, sweet Corn
Beans(bush lima), Popcorn, sweet Potatoes
Sqush(winter), Southern Peas

***JULY***
summer sqush, Irish potatoes, southern peas
*tomatoes(plants), sweet corn, *collards
Squash(winter)

***AUGUST***
Southern peas, summer squash, carrots, *collards
*cabbage(plants), *cauliflower(plants), beets
*broccoli(plants), turnips, Chinese cabbage,
Swiss chard, beans(bush), Beans(lima), mustard
cucumbers, kale

***SEPTEMBER***
lettuce, radish, mustard
turnips, spinach
*collards, kale

***OCTOBER***
Winter peas(Austrian peas), turnips
*collards, kale, spinach, rape

***NOVEMBER***
Beets(in hot bed or winter box)
Lettuce protected by radish

***DECEMBER***
Cabbage(hot bed), garden peas

"The purpose of this Year-Round Home Garden Planting Guide is to show that you can garden year-round instead of only in the summer.

This planting guide was prepared primarily for residents of southeastern Arkansas but can be easily adapted to the rest of the state by adding two weeks to a month, depending on how far north one is located."

*To produce broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards or tomato plants for spring crops, sow seed about five (5) to six (6) weeks earlier than the date suggested for setting. To produce these crops for fall they should be sown about four (4) weeks earlier than the date suggested for setting.

Vegetables are in order of how they should be planted during the month. For example, in JULY, summer squash should be planted the first part of the month & winter squash the last part of the month.

I would also look on different forums like vegetable, frugal, tips & techniques, etc. here on GardenWeb. I keep a garden journal to help keep track of what I'm doing & what I've done, etc. You can read up on garden journals & how to make your own on my site garden journal

Another quick question. My original plans were to put all my plants that require trellising against my fence on the west side of my yard. This would be for the beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. I was going to be a very narrow bed only about 1 ft wide and 32 ft long. Then I thought about making it wider to 2 ft wide by 16 ft long and wondered if the plants on the outside would still be able to reach the trellis almost 2 ft away. Now I'm thinking I should move away from the fence to get the afternoon light and make the bed 2 ft by 16 ft with the trellis up the middle so both sides can climb it. Any advice?

I'd be a bit concerned about the 1' wide bed drying out too fast. and, with the fence, it all depends, air movement and sunlight helps any plants--but then theres some plants that do benefit from shade in the hottest part of the day. One year, my tomatoes were bearing all summer, while others stopped in the heat--by lucky accident, that year, my tomatoes were planted where they had shade from 2P.M on.

Sounds like a good idea to put the trellis in the middle and it would help to zig zig the plants instead of putting them directly across from each other. Does that make sense?

Make sure your neighbor knows not to weed eat/mow the plants on their side of the trellis. It would be shame if they assumed they needed to trim all the way up to it.

Or is there a privacy fence between you and your neighbor? If that's what you meant, then the plants will get sun all morning until the fence shades them in the afternoon right? I think some veggies will tolerate afternoon shade. Hope someone with more knowledge than me will look over your list to see if they think you will have enough sun for what you want to plant.