I bought some 6 mil plastic sheeting today, and I'm going to convert a large mobile cage we made a few years into a portable greenhouse. I also bought some cabbage and brocolli plants. It's too cold here for them, but once I get the green house ready, I can plant them in there and get a month's head start. Our cool season is always too short (goes from too cold to too hot in a couple of weeks) so it will be interesting to see how a green house will help things.
The soil temp for our area hit 45 F today, so I'm going to plant peas and carrots and lettuce and beets and potatoes this weekend. From what I've read, it doesn't do any good to plant before the soil hits 45, the cool season seeds will just rot. 55F for warm season crops. Measuring the soil temperature seems a much more surefire way to figure out when to plant than picking a particular time frame. Fortunately, our state keeps a running tally on the average soil temps all accross our state, so that's a handy tool to have.
It rained a LOT last night, but I'm hoping that will have drained well enough by this weekend I can plant, at least if I work the ground by hand. It would be nicer/easier to do it with our tractor, but when it's mucky, the big equipment does more harm than good. I'm not going to wish futilely for less rain this year. I'm going to plant in mounds so my produce doesn't rot in the ground. I'll have to water more later on, but I can always close off the ends of the rows between the mounds and make a water soak ditch if I need to.