The Old Farmer's Almanac puts the average last frost for Zone 6 on May 1. [1] Sunday morning, the soil is honest about it: the bed is workable, the soil thermometer reads above 50°F by midmorning, and the cool-season list opens for business.

Saturday's piece named the bed that survives the late frost — peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, cabbage, mustard greens, collards, turnips, radish, scallions. [1] Sunday is when those seeds go in. Peas along a trellis on the north edge so they do not shade the lettuce. Lettuce, spinach, and arugula in shallow rows; beets and carrots a little deeper. Radishes anywhere a hand fits between other rows — they will be out before the slower neighbors need the room.

Keep one row of fabric row cover folded at the bed's edge. The almanac's "average" is not a guarantee; a 32°F night this week is still in range, and a five-minute draping saves the spinach. [1]

The Cinco de Mayo pivot lives in the cool window too. Cilantro and scallions germinate in 50–60°F soil and resent heat — Sunday's row of cilantro is Tuesday's salsa, and the same row, sown again in two weeks, is the salsa for Memorial Day. [2] The Cinco de Mayo recipe stack across major outlets this week — birria, elote, mole — leans on cilantro, scallion, and lime by the handful. [2] The handful starts in the dirt today.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago