I have absolutely no experience with growing in your sort of area (I'm in Ireland, so a lot further north, a lot more temperate, and a *whole* lot closer to sea level), but I can offer some general comments. Please ignore if it's not what you need.
Don't plant out until it's pretty likely you're not going to get a hard frost. So you probably have a while! There is a thing called a wall-o-water, which I heard about from a friend in Fort Collins (I'll see if she has any insights from her garden) -- it's a plant surround that you fill with a thin layer of water, and it works to even out day/night temperature shifts, and also diffuses the UV so plants don't get sunburned. You might find it useful for the tomato(es), if it's findable / in your price range.
You can start seedlings now, I'd say, if you have space indoors; it's better if they're not *too* warm or they get very stretched-out and thin, but giving them a head start is a good idea. It always takes longer for things to germinate than I think it will.
When you plant them out, give them a sunshade for the first few days -- like a piece of newspaper propped up over them. It'll help them acclimate. Some sort of sunshade might be good for lettuce, too -- UV retards growth, and that makes lettuce bitter by the time it's big enough to eat.
Brassicas -- which includes broccoli -- do not like a lot of heat. There are fast-growing salady leaves -- arugula, mizuna -- that you could put at the ends of the summer, before and after the intense heat. The tougher brassicas, like kale, are quite frost-tolerant.
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Date: 2011-03-27 08:00 pm (UTC)Don't plant out until it's pretty likely you're not going to get a hard frost. So you probably have a while! There is a thing called a wall-o-water, which I heard about from a friend in Fort Collins (I'll see if she has any insights from her garden) -- it's a plant surround that you fill with a thin layer of water, and it works to even out day/night temperature shifts, and also diffuses the UV so plants don't get sunburned. You might find it useful for the tomato(es), if it's findable / in your price range.
You can start seedlings now, I'd say, if you have space indoors; it's better if they're not *too* warm or they get very stretched-out and thin, but giving them a head start is a good idea. It always takes longer for things to germinate than I think it will.
When you plant them out, give them a sunshade for the first few days -- like a piece of newspaper propped up over them. It'll help them acclimate. Some sort of sunshade might be good for lettuce, too -- UV retards growth, and that makes lettuce bitter by the time it's big enough to eat.
Brassicas -- which includes broccoli -- do not like a lot of heat. There are fast-growing salady leaves -- arugula, mizuna -- that you could put at the ends of the summer, before and after the intense heat. The tougher brassicas, like kale, are quite frost-tolerant.