OK, I was back over there today(2 days after posting this thread) and its generally been in the low 80's for the last few days, but only 70 today. However, the recently warmer weather has seemingly caused them to start growing. They appeared to be at least 2 inches taller than 2 days earlier, and they appear to be a bit wider, meaning that I believe their primary leaves are growing larger finally. I had grown standard Burpee burpless cuke plants in 2011 from market packs bought at Home depot, and they were small when planted, and with them I bought a single pack that had like 6 separate cuke plants all close together in that standard store market pack, so I carefully separated them, and planted them. But it took like 2 weeks before I noticed any significant growth from them at that time, even though I planted those plants in early June in one of the hottest summers om record. But once they finally started growing, they really took off!

I had never tried to start any kind of seedling before. Last year I just bought some indeterminate seedlings. I thought it would be interesting to try some determinate and "semi-determinate" types, since you can't get those as seedlings (at least that I have seen). And, I was very attracted to the reduced staking/pruning requirements. Anyhow, the reasons for my seedlings poor early performance are many and varied. I had some hairy fungus on like day 2, which I treated with cinnamon. My lighting was 4 40W fluorescent shop lights with not exactly even spacing. I was growing just a couple each of 8 tomato varieties and a couple different varieties of peppers. So, even when everything was growing as expected, keeping correct spacing from the lights was not achieved. As I potted things up, I ran out of room inside and had some in a cold frame outside with inconsistent amounts of light, and it was still on the cold side even inside the frame since I started a few weeks early, expecting to screw something up so bad that I would have to start from scratch. I had one I started really early intending to grow it in a pot indoors that I almost lost to too much water (it's doing well on my deck now), so then I underwatered everything else for a while... Despite my many mistakes, about a third of my seedlings seemed to do just fine, another third were bad enough I just tossed them in the compost. 2 of them I put in the ground under the cold frame super early are doing extremely well. I have limited space in my garden, so it would be a boon to know early if I should give up on something. I know that if you have some really sad looking indeterminate plants, they'll be behind a healthy-looking counterpart, but since they just grow forever, you just lose a week or 2 of growth/tomatoes. But, if the determinate plant is destined to grow for just 4 months then die, if you have 1 month of stunted growth, it seems like it couldn't possibly make up that lost time. It would just end up half as big and give little or no fruit, since it would be dying before it was big enough. OR, maybe it keeps growing until it gets to a certain size then dies, in which case it would just be behind schedule...

CP has always done pretty well here, but some years are exceptional. Glad yours has decided to behave itself. BFR is not yet putting on scapes that I have noticed, but Stealth Bomber is. It looks as if it might be a decent year. Our county is much improved on the drought "meter" and we are having rain now. And, by the way, Julia, my Josephine clematis has decided to have a very good year after all with longer bloom than usual.

Thanks so much...Debra, these temps are only for 2 or 3 days, then 80s againMantis, I have decided there is no typical beginning. We are actually a week or so later with beginning than last year, and I have never gotten a bad bloom on Marseilles Watercolor which consistently reblooms here. Julia, as much as I love Betty Ford, it always gives me bad blooms before the good. one begin, but it has a lot of scapes so that is good....and I always wonder, whe we have a cool snap and the blooms won't open well, just how you in cooler climes manage to get beautiful opening blooms.