[Oliver]

People here always say "you plant after Mother's Day." Working back from this date puts me with a seed starting date that coincides with Farmer's Almanac, which is I believe March 2-22. Late April and early May are very unpredictable here. In the last few years we've had 2 blizzards at the end of April. One year it frosted on May 19. Of the two tomato varieties I wanted this year (small garden) I only had seeds for one in late February. I started them and they took off like crazy. Early April was warm and I thought "I'll show them." Then late April came and a bunch of low 20's and 30's at night for two weeks. I had a bunch of root bound sickly monsters. The other seed I finally got on March 25 and planted when I got home. They grew fast also but I was able to harden them off at early and planted 5 of them yesterday with plastic mulch. The positive was that I got to start doing garden things earlier but wasted some money and energy. On a side note, it worked out for me because I ended up finding a different "strain" of the first tomato that I wanted to try more than the original. I started them last week and have seedlings already. Might get tomatoes a little late from that one but will have what I really want.