No takers here. This will be my first growing season in zone 5 since I moved from KY, a 6B. I have organized, planned, etc, but with still 6 inches of snow/ice on the ground, I'm reminded to take it easy for a while.
What zone are you in there in Alabama? It seems a little early to start (27 degrees) but I don't know a thing about your area. I know when I was in KY the temps just fluctuated way too much for comfort. I do envy you, I would love to be getting stuff started about now!! Good luck with your garden, Lori

I will start cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli the first of February, Potatoes and English peas go in the ground mid February. Eggplant, Pepper, Tomato started the first of March. One thing I have learned over the years is not to rush the seasons.

I live in upstate NY. Although we're having warmer than usual temperatures this week, there's still a lot of winter left. I'll have to garden vicariously through my friends in the south. :-)

In the meantime, I've been having a lot of fun looking through seed catalogs and figuring out what to grow.

alan8

Have fun, and keep in mind that soil temperatures at planting time are just as important as ambient temps for sowing seeds or setting out plants. The site suggests testing with a soil thermometer if you don't have other access to that information.

I'm fortunate: here in Georgia there's an excellent weather site that gives all kinds of weather/soil information, including soil temperatures. To see an example, type in the zip code, 30114, then click on "Yesterday's conditions". You can enter any Georgia zip, but that one will work fine.

I suspect that other states have this kind of detailed daily information somewhere on the web, too. The trick is to find it!

This is my first gardening season in our new home and I have to figure out what I'm going to do pretty quickly. The move from a z 7 to a z8 isn't a big deal but it's that I'm use to 72" rain/yr onto a nice sandy loam and now I'll get about 25-30" onto a gravel loam with a clay layer down about 4 feet. STill only 2 months where the average high reaches 70 (70 in July and 71 in Aug). I have 100 Jersey Knight crowns arriving in April and a Dixondale onion order in early May. With no greenhouse and no seed starting room this could be a bean, pea, potato and squash year. Tom

I'm just looking at catalogs and scheming at this point. Last year was a painful growing year what with a late snow in mid April killing off the fruit harvest and the early crops, drought, bunnies eating EVERYTHING, a terrible hailstorm in mid June, more drought....

Right now I'm just looking at the weather and saying "rain, rain, we need rain, get that water table back up....rain..."

I'm also looking at catalogs and making my seed selections. I won't even be starting my peppers, tomatoes and eggplant until late March, early April. We've had warm (mid thirties) weather the last few days but the temps are supposed to be dropping again in the next day or so. With the ground frozen and snow on it I'm a long way from doing any gardening. I'll just enjoy reading about the gardens those of you in warmer climes are growing.