thanks, douglas! I went outside today, 24 hours after the damage, to assess what looks damaged. Out of 35 tomato plants, only two are wilty looking, my Fourth of July and Mr. Stripey, and then my Pink Brandywine has yellowed leaves but I'm not sure if that's from the frost or if it wasn't doing well ahead of time. I didn't notice it yesterday, so I'm guessing the frost. One of my six Romas is looking questionable, too, but it might need to be watered. Out of my 37 pepper plants and 2 tomatillo plants, everything looks completely green and healthy. Meanwhile, five of my eight cucumber hills are goners and the other three might soon follow. And one of my four basil plants is shriveled. So far, the cukes bore the worst of the frost damage, no question. And after reading posts here about Mr. Stripey's production and the bad taste of Fourth of July tomatoes, perhaps I'm no worse off with those gone. But I do love pink Brandywine tomatoes, so I have to replace that one. Thanks for all the advice. I'll keep you guys posted if more of them die, just so that my original thread becomes something of a reference in itself since I didn't see this topic addressed when I searched for it ahead of time.

Prairie-girl, I know how you feel about not wanting to unpack, because it is easier to maintain a house with breathing room. I'm beginning to realize that if I don't miss it, don't remember I have it, then I can do without it. I never thought of myself as a "collector" or "hoarder" either. But I have a friend who religiously throws out EVERYTHING, and she thinks I keep too much around. It made me self-conscious. So now I box things up and if I cannot remember it, then next time I open the boxes, I weed things out. Most folks could live in one of our smaller homes, and do not need to add on to their home. That was the case with my mother, who added a 20 x 20 building for her craft work, then filled it up and had everything in the house packed too. It sure detracted from her enjoyment of her living spaces. So when I watch DESIGNED TO SELL or the other show with Sabrina Soto on HGTV, the first thing they do is DECLUTTER. But that is to make the home more sellable. It does give a sense of spaciousness. What I'm wanting to achieve is a nice balance between storage and function. I want space enough to store the things that I like to USE, and have them within easy reach. I like to sew but have no good spot to keep projects out unless the house looks ugly. And I like to paint with acrylics and also paint furniture, but you cannot put those things back into a cabinet if you have limited room. When you took the pics of your house and it was cozy and warm, it was probably between projects when everything was put up. Looking nice and working on a project make us all walk a fine line. Hmmmm, I have an idea for a thread, and I'll post it pretty soon. Thanks for giving me the idea, Missy! :)

Breezy - well, we're picking what we can, we've still got a lot of details to work out - our GC is also the cabinet maker...so, we know that we want cherry, Shaker style, dark stain, but the actual stain for the cabinetry is dependent upon the color that we do on our red oak hardwood when it's refinished and we are holding on our hardwood guy to get us colors until we know our start date with the GC. So, while waiting for all this, I went to HD and picked up some of their floor sample swatches and we came up with a color that we want to emulate for our floor and have been using it as our "close-enough" color. We're working out our pulls - I know that we want pulls and not knobs, and I know that we want a transitional/contemporary look to those, so I don't have an exact pull, but we're close. Paint, not under control AT ALL right now. And I'm amazingly relaxed about not knowing that. haha I don't expect to have that decided until the cabinets, granite, and lighting are in place. We're going neutral and lighter. Quite possibly a blue undertone, but not necessarily actually blue. Color in a room changes so much when you have everything in place and our room is changing significantly from what it is currently because we're tearing out a wall and removing a window - light is going to play quite differently once all that happens. So, I have a pile of swatches that I've put next to our bits & pieces of stuff and eliminated a lot and we have a few that we'll wind up getting samples of when it comes time to paint. We've got our faucet, we've got our GD, but I have to purchase the air switch. I need to work out details on plugmold - don't know if I should spring for the angled plugmold from Task or just go with the HD stuff. And, oddly enough, even though I'm a photographer, kitchen lighting is just baffling me. I guess it's that I'm used to seeing light and modifying light - I guess it's really the electrical aspect of it that's confusing to me. marti8a - thanks for the vote of confidence. We're happy about having so many of these decisions made...but now I just want to know when we can get started! Ginny - Thank you! I haven't forgotten about you, I promise. I owe you an email. I've been doing a ton of looking and deciding about stuff. It can be seriously all-consuming - if only I didn't have work work to do also this would be so much easier! Sometimes I wish that I were one of those people who just said, "KD, please create a new kitchen for me." BTW, I'm so glad that you're hanging out here even though your kitchen is done. :)

Ok now I'm really getting confused. There are no indications of frost damage whatsoever in the photos. The plants are clearly anemic. But given the mixed info given there is no sure way to tell why. First, why in zone 5 are these tiny young plants already buried in deep mulch. Far too early as the ground hasn't sufficiently warmed up yet, especially for squash, and cool soil temps can cause nutrient uptake problems. Plus you need to pull the mulch back to a 4-6" circle around the plants until they are well established. All that high carbon mulch is further leaching nitrogen from the plants not to mention encouraging pests. Second, "garden soil enriched with well rotted compost, pure alfalfa pellets, dried chicken feathers and a little lime to counteract our alkaline soil" could easily be NOT "rich" soil since there are minimal if any nutrients in it for the plants. Decomposition takes time - lots of time - and is wholly dependent on soil bacteria activity and soil temps. Third, one should never play around with either lime or sulfa (BIG difference between the two) without absolute knowledge of their soil pH. Doing so only creates further nutrient problems. Fourth, define "well-watered" please. Unfortunately to many new gardeners that often means daily. Which is usually drowning them. IMO your plants need to be UN-mulched for a couple of weeks and fed some form of readily available nutrients and your soil needs to be professionally tested so you know what you are actually working with. Dave