On Wed, 07 May 2003 09:02:17 -0400, George Wolf
wrote:

Pat:

Sorry to cut my response short last time! You're certainly welcome! Please
respond on pgh.gardening so that we can get things started. I would also
appreciate if you point you other gardening friends in our direction. I have
access to Penn State Certified Master Gardeners and graduate horticulturists
who can be helpful!

By the way, in your zone, when do you usually start planting?


(Sending this to both rec.gardens.edible and pgh.gardening -
BTW, I can't read pgh.gardening yet - my newsgroup provider
hasn't picked it up yet - hopefully they will soon, if not,
I'll write to them to request it be added.)

Our 'last frost date' (theoretically!) is around June 1.
We've only lived here (Tioga County, PA) two years and both
years we had killing frosts in mid-June. Our neighbors tell
us that we (very seldom, fortunately) can expect frosts in
July or August.

First frost date is theoretically the first week in October.
Both years we've lived here, it was in fact October 8.

I've had stuff planted out for quite a while now - but it's
frost-hardy stuff - lettuces, chard, various Chinese greens,
broccoli, and broccoli raab.

They're mostly in big pots, and we are able to drag the pots
into the garage when it's going to be very, very cold. We
missed a few times (the weather forecast wasn't correct),
and my lettuces, chard, and Chinese greens have survived one
night of 15 F and one night of 16 F.

Some of the lettuces and Chinese greens are ready to eat
now, we're enjoying them both.

I planted out two green peppers this week: however, they
are both in pots (able to be brought in) and protected by
WalloWaters.

This week, I planted out one tomato plant in the main
garden, again protected by a WalloWater, and 12 lettuce
plants went into the main garden - that's the beginning.

It's slow going as we are also making raised beds this year
(from tires) and there's a lot of work involved: one time
work.

This year will be very tough for us, most of our efforts
this year are devoted to improving the soil, getting the
raised beds built (many little round raised beds!), building
a cold frame, and building a hoophouse. Next year's
gardening - and subsequent years - should be very, very
pleasant and easy by comparison.

The main enemy of gardening here appears to be the short
season, and cold nights even in summer. That and the fact
that our 'soil' (hahahahaha!) is very very heavy clay.
We're not so much 'amending it' as 'replacing it' with
spent-mushroom soil that we bought.

Pat