Wow that looks great. I will try to post mine this week too. Work and personal need to get done tomorrow.

Thanks. I usually do mine in November or so, so clearly I am behind. The warm season grow list is a work in progress. It mostly is done, but I haven't completely settled on okra, squash and melon varieties yet. I'm getting close, though.

My cool season list is quite a bit shorter than your's Dawn.

ASPARAGUS:

Jersey Knight

Mary Washington

Jersey Supreme

Purple Passion

Pacific Purple

BROCCOLI:

Bay Meadows

Early Dividend

Aspabroc

CAULIFLOWER:

Snowcrown

Cheddar

GARLIC:

Spanish Roja

German White

Chesnok Red

Russian Red

Purple Glazer

Estonia Red

Siberian

LEEKS:

King Richard

Megaton

Gevaria

ONIONS:

Evergreen Hardy White bunching

Copra

Candy

Red Candy Apple

Superstar

LETTUCE:

Breen

Dragoon

Sparx

Ridgeline

POTATOES:

French Fingerling

Austrian Crescent Fingerling

German Butterball

Yukon Gold

Whatever new fingerling my local seed store carries this year

RADISH:

French Breakfast

Easter Egg Blend

Cherry Bell

Well I guess my list isn't that short after all! lol

It isn't all that short, lol.

My list started out short and kept getting longer, but I didn't list stuff like garlic that already was in the ground. I've been harvesting and saving some garlic to replant for so long that I'm no longer exactly sure what I have. I might be if I had paid more attention when harvesting it, or when pulling cloves to save and replant in the fall. I think I started out with 8 different garlic varieties eons ago.

Is all the asparagus new this year or are you just listing what you already have growing? My asparagus planting must be about a decade old now in its present location and is Purple Passion and one of the Jersey male hybrids, maybe Jersey Knight. That's another thing I no longer remember.

We're growing a nice winter crop of coyotes outdoors---they were howling somewhere near our house around 2-3 am (our two younger dogs howl back at them).

The cool-season crops always are a crapshoot here because some years we warm up far too early and all the brassicas more or less fail---the broccoli and cauliflower generally manage to produce even if we get hot early, but the brussels sprouts are more iffy in Spring than in Fall. The lettuce (surprisingly) and the kale usually last the longest into summer. Potatoes rarely if ever fail and I always plant a lot more onions than we need, so this year I really cut back on them. Sugar snap peas do great some years and poorly others---it just depends on how early the heat arrives, but my best strategy to beat the heat with them is just to plant a lot of them so I can get a huge early harvest in case heat cuts the harvest season short. Actually, that is my strategy with most cool-season crops----just plant enough that you can harvest and preserve a lot early in case the heat cuts short their productive period.

I have Pixie cabbage seeds, too Dawn, have you grown it before? I've never gotten cabbage to grow successfully. I think I end up planting too late both spring and fall. Every time I think I've heard of every kale variety, there's a new one. Smooth German. Have to go look that up.

Yes, I've grown Pixie and it does well here. I like to sow the seeds indoors around mid-January and put the plants in the ground sometime between mid-February and early March, depending on what the weather is doing. The last few years it has been warm enough early enough to put them in the ground pretty early. With cabbage, brussels sprouts and cauliflower, planting early pays off down here because it helps the plants beat the heat. With broccoli, early planting often doesn't pay off if the weather is still fluctuating between cold and hot because too much cold after the plants are a certain size tends to lead to buttonheads. So, I'll be more conservative with the broccoli plants than with the others.

Smooth German is an old one, and came back into commercial availability via SSE. It is an unusual kale in that it often sets seed the first year, which not all kales (being biennials) will do, so it is a great variety for folks who want to save seeds. Having said that, I've had plenty of kale set seeds in their first year, so I think our wacky roller coaster weather might make them "think" they have been through two years in one, so to speak. The other way, of course, to get kale to go to seed is to plant it in the fall, overwinter it (it seldom freezes back down here) and you'll get seeds after it sends up flowerstalks in April or so. First year kale usually won't send up flowerstalks and form seeds here until June or July, if it does it at all. By then, I've usually lost interest in watching it to see if I get seeds because by then the weather is so hot that I just don't even care.

Dawn

Mine is a lot shorter! It looks great (yours). Here's mine

Collards:

Alabama Blue

Kale:

Red Russian

Cabbage:

Greyhound

Cour Di Bue

Brunswick

Early Flat Dutch

Broccoli:

Imperial F1 (supposedly likes summer heat, says someone in MAINE)

Cauliflower:

Snow Crown F1

Brussel Sprouts:

Jade Cross

Spinach:

Bloomsdale Long Standing

Beans:

"Nadine"

Top Crop

Beets:

Chiogga

Detroit Dark Red

Radishes:

Whatever the feed store has!

Turnips:

Whatever the feed store has!

Swedes:

Helenor

Carrots:

Scarlet Nantes

St. Valery

Parsnips:

Harris Model

Potatoes:

Probably Yukon Gold for earlies and some other maincrop potatoes from the feed store

Onions:

Australian Brown Intermediate Day

Bunching Onions

Peas:

Alderman (Tall Telephone)

I'm ordering over 1,000 pea seeds. Going to be planting a lot!!

Leeks:

American Flag (Broad London)

Garlic:

Inchelium Red

Lettuce:

Rouge Grenobloise (My favorite!!)

Ice Queen

Merlot

Some random from the feed store

Im probably forgetting some! I'll be ordering from Southern Seed Exchange and Pine Tree Seeds (I like Pine Tree Seeds prices). Keeping it simple this year as I spent way too much on seeds last year!!

Jacob, Your list is amazing! I expect your weather stays cooler than mine so you have a better chance of keeping cool-season crops going longer up there than I generally can down here. In the worst years, we occasionally start hitting the 90s in April or early May (in 2011, we were hitting the 90s around April 8, 9 & 10, or 9, 10 and 11th---it was horrible) and that is pretty much the end of about 80% of the cool season crops as they perceive the cool season has ended. I always hope for a long, mild spring and generally get the long part but not the mild part. Maybe this will be the mild year, or at least the year that summertime temperatures do not arrive until at least May (and June would be better).

I'm always hoping for what we don't get here---snow in winter (rare here), a long mild spring (ours cycles from too hot to too cold but then probably averages out on paper to what looks like a nice, mild Spring), rain in summer (when it happens, there's too much of it at once, but generally it doesn't happen), and prolonged mild autumn weather with cold nights (nope, nope, nope, as it tends to just stay hot here forever).

I'd probably be a much happier gardener if I could learn to like the weather we have instead of always hoping for ideal gardening weather that we just don't often get here. I remember one year, and it might have been 2012, when the sugar snap peas still were producing through mid-June, which never happens here. I filled up the freezer with snap peas that year. We haven't had a good pea year like that since then, so ought to be due for one about now.

Dawn

I found the smoOth green kale on the SSE site, but I refuse to order from YET ANOTHER company this year and if I looked at their offerings I would go hog wild. I found a couple of German varieties elsewhere. I guess I will leave some kale varieties for next year. I must try to get things in the ground sooner.

I tried Alabama Blue collards, Jacob, but planted too late. I will try again in spring. I hope they're good. Have you tried SESE's Yellow cabbage collards? I really liked them.

I like Tall Telephone peas, too, except they are the last of my varieties to make pods. I don't like growing peas. I would if DH would let me do sugar snaps, but a) I hate shelling and b) the footprint is so big for what you get when shelled. You must have a lot more room than I do, or like my DH you like English peas.

Amy, I don't have a ton of room. I have 6 15x3 ft. Beds with full sun, one 20x6 ft. Bed with full sun, one 30x6 ft. Bed with full sun, 2 15x3 raised beds with full sun, and an 18" wide 30ft double row for beans. Not a ton of space. I wasn't planning on growing peas originally but figured since we eat them almost every night some weeks I'd better try some. I don't think I can possibly grow enough for us to eat though!

Theyre a little on the pricy side, but Southern Seed Exchange is a favorite of mine so far. I'm excited to see how their seed does!

I have actually never had collards. I was going to grow Alabama Blue collards so that I could see what they taste like. I've seen some of what looks like delicious meals made with collard greens.

Dawn, we don't start hitting 90's until June usually but it doesn't start coming regularly until July. Peas can be finicky with that but I've gotten them to last into late June often. I'm going to attempt some summer cabbages that would be heading right in the peak of heat this next summer. I'm hoping a really deep mulch will keep them cool with frequent watering! It would prove an interesting experiment. Southern Seed Exchange claims that Early Flat Dutch cabbage is heat tolerant.

I'm going to concentrate a bit on greens this year, and will venture out with carrots, beets, a few beans, a small block of early corn. I'm going to hold off on cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage and maybe the carrots ants and beets if there's not room for them this spring.

BEANS
Contender
BEETS
Detroit Dark Red
Crosby Egyptian
GREENS
Arugula
Spinach, Abundant Bloomsdale
Spinach, New Zealand
Crawford Bibb
Crispino
Mayan Jaguar Romaine
Cosmo (12" tall)
CARROTS
Danvers 126
Imperator
CORN
Early Sunglow
ONIONS
Candy
Red River Candy
Highlander
Copra
PEPH
POTATOES
Kennebec
Russet Norkotah
PEPPERS
California Wonder
Numex Big Jim
Gamba
Marconi
Jupiter
Charleston Belle
Ashe County Pimento

Golden Greek Pepperoncini

Figitelli Sicilia

Aji Dulce

Poblano Ancho

Explosive Ember

Pretty in Purple

SUMMER SQUASH

Early Bulam

Straightneck Early Yellow

TOMATOES

Sungold

Heidi

Super Italian Paste

Sophie's Choice

Cherokee Carbon

Mortgage Lifter

Big Beef

Obviously, this list is heavily influenced by YOU all! :)

Question about Brussels sprouts. Jade Cross I have down a 80-100 DTM. Rubine 85 DTM and Hestia 93. Does Jade Cross mature at the earlier end of the range for you? I've grown JC in fall, also Rubine, but Hestia is new. I doubt I will do Brussels sprouts in spring (as much as DH would love them), but I wondered Dawn and Jacob if this variety works better for you?

Jacob, I have found that many cabbages are remarkably heat-tolerant and have had them last in the ground without splitting well into June here, and June usually is pretty hot. So, I think you'll likely have good luck with them up there unless for some odd reason y'all get really hot really early in 2018. I think once or twice the cabbage plants, or at least some of them, have made it to July.

Nancy, That's a nice list and a long one. I see that we have indoctrinated you well. lol

Amy, For me, Jade Cross comes in closer to 80s days, though it does depend on what the weather has done throughout its life. I believe I ordered Hestia seed from either Renee's or Territorial Seed and grew it the first year it was an AAS regional winner, and it didn't do well for me. In that same year, Rubine didn't do well either. That probably was 2015 and we were too, too wet after 4 previous years of recurrent drought, so nothing did that well in the extreme moisture. I'm not saying it was Hestia's fault. I probably have the rest of that seed packet in my seed b ox and will give it another try sometime. Last year I grew Jade Cross as an impulse buy when I saw the seedlings on the store shelves and the plants grew well, but we got too hot too early and they didn't produce usable sprouts. I don't remember if I gave up and yanked them in April when we hit the mid-90s or in May when we hit 100 degrees, but there was just a point where I looked at them and they weren't doing anything and I knew they weren't going to. So, for those people who declare them heat-tolerant, I think they mean heat-tolerant in a climate where 85 degrees is considered hot, not in our climate here.

There's plenty of years when I don't even have brussels sprouts and cauliflower on my Grow List for spring, and then I see the plants in a nursery and cannot resist, and they normally don't do that well in Spring....so you'd think I'd stop making that impulse purchase. I'm going to try starting the brussels sprouts seeds next week to see if I can have them the right size to go into the ground in early February in an effort to beat the heat. Right now it seems ludicrous to be talking about beating the heat, but the cold will depart and the heat will return, and usually it happens more quickly than we think it will. I don't think last Spring had as many hot days as the Spring before, but we had one day in the mid-90s in April and that seemed like enough to irritate the brassicas a great deal. Then, we had a 100-degree day (and only the one, I think) in mid-May, and the cool-season crops were pretty much done after that. Apparently they don't like 100-degree weather any more than I do.

The way that I grow cool-season crops would drive most people crazy. There's a point each Spring where I just know that the heat has set in here to stay and the cool-season crops' chance of producing a harvest is dropping daily, especially with the really picky stuff like brussels sprouts and cauliflower, so if we hit that point and they aren't close to producing, I yank them out and replace them with a warm-season crop that's more likely to give us a harvest. It is frustrating to yank them out before they produce, but once we hit a certain heat level, I can leave them another month and watch them bolt or wither and die without producing or I can just move on at the point where I know I should. It is the same with sugar snap peas here. If they are producing despite the heat, they stay, but the very minute PM shows up, I might as well just yank them because it spreads quickly and ruins the pea pods. Once it shows up, you cannot cure it or stop it from advancing, so why bother and why waste time trying to baby the plants along another few weeks only to see the PM hit the pods as they near maturity? I don't have enough space as it is compared to everything I want to grow, so I am relentless about declaring the cool season done and moving on. Only the onions, leeks and potatoes tend to stick around despite the heat and still produce well, so I don't yank them early. Every now and then the cool-season lasts a while and we get great cool-season harvests---2002, 2004 and 2010 seem to come to mind as years like that. It would seem we ought to be due for one of those years again, but for some reason in recent years there's been too much early heat.

I want all y'all (that this the plural of the singular y'all, you know) to know we have a guest cat in the spare bedroom. He or she is more or less feral and has been coming around for about a week or so wanting to be given a dish of food, so we've been feeding it outdoors while our cats are indoors (to prevent our territorial cats from chasing it off). I don't know if it is a feral cat, a barn cat who is tired of living on rodents, or a neighbor's cat who, for whatever reason, needs to be fed (maybe its people are out of town) I've seen it around for a couple of months while walking the dogs, and it seems to always be hunting and fending for itself. So, I told Tim earlier today that we ought to try to catch it and bring it indoors before the really cold nights arrive here, which I think is tomorrow. He went out and fixed up a box on the patio for it with a big fluffy old comforter, and we thought that maybe we'd add a heated throw to that box tomorrow.

Well, apparently the cat was watching us and figured that if we were feeding it and fixing a box for it, maybe it could move in. So, when I took Jet outside a few minutes ago to do his thing, the cat ran into the mudroom. Then, it got scared and ran out. So, what I took from that experience was that it wanted to come in and be safe and warm but was scared. I asked Tim to try to get it because the cat seems partial to him, and the cat let Tim pick it up, bring it indoors and put it in the spare room. Now we've added a litter box to that room and a cat dish with canned food and water. I guess we'll provide shelter for it until the nights get back up out of the bitter-cold range in a few days. Well, unless it escapes from our well-intentioned care or, of course, if we were to learn a neighbor was looking for a missing cat, then we'd contact them to see if this one is theirs. The last thing we need is to add a cat to our menagerie, but I hate to think of any apparently homeless animals being out in the brutal nighttime lows and wind chills we're expecting here beginning tomorrow. Yellow Cat came indoors about a decade ago to escape the weather and stayed with us until he got sick and died, so I cannot help think he might be this little cat's guardian angel and maybe brought him here to us.

Dawn

lol, Dawn--I guess you did get me indoctrinated! It didn't hurt that Amy hand-delivered some tomatoes to me last summer, either! I think the more difficult thing for me was that I'm just venturing out into the veggie gardening you know, so I had to realize if I grew ONE successful green bean (well I actually found a "tender" one I may have to order, too), and ONE variety of corn, and only 2 varieties of carrots and beets, that will be good enough for now. Right? Baby steps. And for Pete's sakes, I do not need 6 dozen cucumbers all at once. Maybe succession planting from July-end of July, and only a couple varieties. We don't even EAT pickles. Now the peppers on the other hand. If I don't wanna eat peppers, I'll just call 'em flowers, right? And maybe kale the next year. I was never a big kale fan, so we'll see. I do want to grow some kind of wonderful melon (right now I have crane on hand).

Nancy, you can always donate extra produce to one of the food pantries around Wagoner. I'm planning on doing that here.

Wrong thread, lol

Dawn, do you have a favorite winter squash/pumpkin variety? Pumpkins are about all we eat in terms of squash. Mine get bad powdery mildew come August.

Amy, I've never grown Brussels sprouts so this is a first time. Haha. I'm the only one in the family that even likes them so I don't have to grow too many.

Seminole Pumpkin (C. moschata, and it is a winter squash and not an actual pumpkin) is our favorite because it grows like mad and they last forever. There's two strains available from SESE---the regular one that grows pumpkin type winter squash that are generally teardrop shaped and the larger fruited that somehow developed on its own over the years. As far as I know, Seminole has been documented back as far as the 1500s in Florida, and I like to grow mine the same way the native people grew them---letting them climb up into the trees. Mine generally stay in their place for a while and seem well-behaved, and then you get busy at mid-summer and don't really realize they are running wild until you stand still for 5 minutes one day and see that the vines have climbed the garden fence, the shrubs, the trees, the tomato cages and the bean trellis. I don't mind it. By the time they really are running rampant, the drought and heat tend to be finished off a lot of less hardy or less heat tolerant plants. Another good one is Tan Cheese Pumpkin, which also has a buff colored skin like Seminole Pumpkin. It also is a C. moschata, which is important here because they resist the ever-present squash vine borers that often take out C. maxima and C. pepo types.

Rebecca, I'll have that a try. I know just who to call. Good reminder. Thank you. I should think about Seminole pumpkin Dawn and Jacob. Thanks!

Nancy, the food bank option is a great excuse to try growing things that you don't know if you'll like, or know you don't like but want to try anyway. Not that I've thought like that or anything...

I agree, Rebecca! I'm glad you reminded me. I need to get in contact with them.

Oh my goodness--Dawn! Some of the best questions and some of the best answers from back then in 2013. I truly was riveted, and thank you to the rest of you, too, George, Paula, Carol, Larry. . . and every one else. I only WISH I had time to study nature and the trees and the plants growing and the pollinators and the ways the plants interacted with the pollinators and each other. I will do the best I can in my remaining years, but like you, although I prefer to try and grow a garden as God does (or Mother Nature) (that is, first, do no harm and WATCH and OBSERVE nature), I'm just not going to have 30 years go get it comfortable. Just know I'm doing the best I can. . . . and I see the ever-present problem of Bermuda grass! (Rueful grin.) What an extraordinary reading today has been, backtracking through the past five years of GWOK. From today's journey, I reckon I'll have to get some drip irrigation/soaker hoses into all the flower beds this year, AND get busy on the Bermuda grass. Also, to my consternation, am tweaking my final 2018 spring growing list. (Thankfully I DO have Cherokee Purple, so will probably add that to the mix-- and am thinking I need to switch out or add a couple more things along the way. Duh-- lol)

What a glorious beginning to a hopefully good gardening year, but I already know from just 2 years, it is a crapshoot, like I feared. Just keep adding good stuff to the dirt--right?! I'm a day early here, and may say it again. . . . but after today's reading, I just have to say, "Happy New Year to you ALL, and here's to a GOOD 2018 for gardens!"

The hardest lesson for me to learn was that each year would not be the same as the previous year---at least most of the time. Knowing that does help because it generally means that whatever weather I had the previous year is not the weather I'll have this year.

But, then, we had drought back to back for four years in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, so I began to feel like we'd have drought every year forever. So, what happened? Record-setting rain (about 200% our average annual rainfall) in 2015 with record flooding over and over again for months, and then still very rainy years in 2016 and for quite a bit of 2017 (until the rain abruptly stopped). So, I'm thinking I should be expecting drought in 2018, and should plan accordingly, but you never really know.

Amy, I had wanted to try that golden acre cabbage. I may add that. Isn't it amazing how many varIeties there are of the simplest vegetables, like greens?

Amy, what size tubs are you using for the root vegetables?

Now THAT is a list. I'm dizzy.

Dawn, when are you supposed to plant the cool season veggies? Also, do you mix your asparagus plants or does each variety have its own bed?

Rebecca, I don't actually KNOW what size the tubs are. 2 x 3 maybe? 18" deep?

Dawn - My asparagus in 3 different plantings. The first was Mary Washington and Jersey Knight in 2007, Jersey Supreme in 2013, and the purple varieties in 2016. This will be the first year to harvest any purple spears.

Amy, Your list is officially the most insane list so far. How many big tubs are you going to use?

I always try to not devote so much space to cool-season plants that no space remains for warm-season ones. That's always a huge challenge for me, so I have to really watch myself at cool-season planting time.

nowyousedum, All my asparagus is in one bed---each variety has its own row.

Planting times vary, but for most cool-season veggies, the OSU-recommended planting dates are from Feb 15 to Mar 10. I'll link the fact sheet with the dates. With some things, like asparagus, you can plant them as soon as you get your hands on the crowns. I'm pretty sure that in the year I planted mine, I bought the bags of crowns in early January and planted immediately, Since asparagus is perennial and can stay in place for decades, it is important to do great soil prep first because you cannot go back after the fact and dig up the roots and redo the soil. Any future soil improvement you do after the asparagus is planted mostly consists of adding layers of compost and mulch on top of the asparagus bed and letting it get worked into the soil naturally by rainfall and small burrowing/digging insects and earthworms.

Here's the OSU planting guide with dates. Please note that there's a range of dates for each veggie. For Spring planting, the earliest dates are recommended for far southeastern OK, the latest dates for far northwestern OK, and the rest of us who live in between the two extremes choose an appropriate date, based on our location and weather, somewhere within that range of dates.

Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide

Jack, I like the purple asparagus a lot. It has a very fine flavor. I hope you enjoy yours as well.

Dawn

DH brought home 10 tubs in good condition someone was throwing out. I have a few more in not so good condition, plus root pouch bags and some round tubs not quite as big as a mineral tub, plus one mineral tub. The hard part will be keeping the dog out of things.

I will probably pare this down a bit as the time comes to plant, but the plan is to do a few plants of a lot of varieties.

I'm working on a grow list for June/July. I never get around to starting things on time (like Brussels sprouts). Maybe a list will help. I think this should be separate from my warm season list. And where the heck am I going to put all the flowers....

I get so carried away when I buy seeds. I really do have a problem! Of course, have you seen the meme on FB that says: in the cold dark days of winter I suffer from S A D.....Seed Acquisition Disorder. Yep, that's me.

I cannot say that I do not suffer from the same thing, but I am working hard to not go overboard this year---largely because my seed box is crammed with previous years' purchases.

I'm kinda excited about all your greens, Amy. Have you grown most of these before? I will be planting more greens, too, here and there.

Nancy, claytonia and mache ( Martha Stewart pronounces this mosh) are small, mild, cold weather leaves that help fill out a salad with some "fresh". The "cresses" I have grown are not as peppery as water cress. Also small leaves. Difficult to make a salad from, but adds to them. Flowering brassica includes broccoli raab, Yu Choy Sumand the Shuka flowering Chinese cabbage they're all brassica rapas with a mild broccoli flavor. It is yu choy until it flowers then it is yu choy sum. Huauzontle, Red is in the goosefoot family (lambs quarters, quinoa) I've not grown it before. Kailaan Open Pollinated, I think this is marketed as Chinese Kale, I didn't get much last year, but had a mustard green flavor as I recall. komatsuna is Japanese mustard green. Milder than most mustard greens. Misome is a cross between komatsuna and Tatsoi I like this cooked, but Choho is a new variety for me. Orach is another relative of lambs quarters. It is a mild tasting green in beautiful colors that brighten up a salad. The leaves are thin and wilt quickly. Pac choi (Brassica rapa Chinensis Group), I think I researched this last year and bok choiy and pac choi are the same. You've probably seen bok choy in grocery stores like Sprouts. Mild mustard taste. Tatsoi, to me is a smaller version of pac choi. You can eat the Asian greens raw or cooked. I like them best stir fried. Yokatta-na (Brassica rapa Narinosa group) is my favorite. Mild, less mustardy. I guess mizuna isn't on my list, but it is a mild mustard green, I have seeds for it too.

I put a * next to ones that are new, but I neglected to mention it in the original post.

Thank you so much, Amy!!! Just what I wanted to learn about.

Okay. The working list is done. Subject to change, of course.

Potatoes: TBD

Sugar snaps: Cascadia

Snow peas: Oregon Giant

Carrots: Nantes, Kuroda, Parisienne

Bunching onion: Parade, Red Baron

Beets: Ruby Queen or Detroit

Spinach: Space, Corvair

Lettuce: (disclaimer: I have all these. Some may or may not be planted. I plan to do at least one seed of each, at some point during the season.)

Muir

Red Cross

Adriana

Starfighter

Bergram's Green

Ezbruke

Sierra

Anuenue

Pablo

Red Sails

Cimarron

Tom Thumb

Bronze Mingonette

Four Seasons