It says to plant carrots now for harvest before Oct 1 frost. But when I got out the seed packets (Burpee) the color-coded map showed Aug-Sept for southern NE. Now, I'm a bit cooler than coastal areas so I went ahead and seeded 12ft or Nantes and 6 ft each of Little Finger and Short N Sweet. Plan on holding off and sowing more (have another 24ft x 2ft bed) 3 weeks and 6 weeks from now - these are in a high tunnel that will be covered in late Aug for peppers and tomatoes so that shouldn't be too late for carrots.

Normally I'd trust Johnny's before the map on the seed packet, but it does seem strange to sow when we still have the hottest days of summer to go. Will carrot seed germinate when it starts hitting 90? I watered well, covered with a burlap bag, watered that, and covered with another bag to keep the moisture in.

Johnny's also gave 7/5 as date to seed kale for Oct 1 frost date. Kale doesn't mind a frost, and I do have row cover (not planning on that in tunnel) so should I wait? I really want to get basil and more dill and cilantro in (early planting bolting) to be ready when tomatoes and cukes are. Then I can pull the basil and put in kale and lettuce later.

Note that a high tunnel without row cover is worse than being outside, once late fall rolls around. The coldest weather typically follows the first snow and without snowcover for insulation, plants in a tunnel can get quite damaged by a freeze that gets lower than 15 degrees F. With row cover in a high tunnel on sufficiently moist soil, I can continue harvesting into subzero temperatures (F) outside, although quality declines rapidly if the subzero temperatures continue.

Slimy - I'm only going to cover the tunnel late summer to extend the peppers and tomatoes into Oct maybe Nov but market ends Oct 1 so anything after that will just be for our own use (or if I get some steady customers at market they can come directly here). Once things get really cold I'm just going to pull the plastic down to 1 side, pull out the nightshades, can let carrots go under straw or burlap maybe but what I'm really trying to do is get some carrots for market now (60-70 days) and then for us later. Given the DTMs on the packets, it seems early unless Johnny's was figuring harvesting over the month of Sept. Agree kale seems really early - I seeded the herbs and still have room but I think I should wait.

Once we get snow I'm not going to be able to get to the tunnel so I'm not even going to try cold-weather stuff in there. I could do lettuce early next year if I can find a market for it, but really put it up to extend the season (mainly at the front end) for the tomatoes and peppers.

You can try searching your county as opposed to just a city and see what you get. I usually have better luck when I widen my searches to my county when looking for things local.