The tomato planting date in my garden falls on April 1, an interesting coincidence with April Fool's Day considering that putting out seedlings carefully tended for about two months is still a gamble with frost. However, the weather had been warm with the nighttime lows getting no lower than the high 30's and usually in the 40's. The weather was nearly warm enough to set out peppers on some nights. The cats were even determined to stay out at night to enjoy the balmy weather.

The garden was clothed in lush fresh green leaves. The bulbs have mostly finished their spring display and the early flowering shrubs are following them into their yearly rest. The azaleas are taking their place on center stage, with the rosy varieties blooming and the white and pink varieties soon to follow suit. They all insisted that it is tomato planting time again.

I launched into the major seedling transplanting for the spring. I had one last set of broccoli seedlings ready to go along with my tomato and eggplant seedlings. I had several trays of flower seedlings also waiting as well. I decided that I had better start with the veggies since the weeds in their reserved beds had gotten a hearty start and would have to be hoed.

As I pushed shredded paper mulch onto the main tomato bed and hoed weeds, I soon regretted not getting that task done sooner. The early veggies had gotten off to a good start and the weeds had outpaced them. I kept reminding myself of what juicy composting material they were as my muscles complained that the weeds were tougher than they were. Whatever exercise experts classified gardening with the lighter exercises instead of the grueling marathons must have only been gardening in a flower pot of nice, soft, sterile potting soil.

That wouldn't be enough room for my tomato seedlings, thirty three nice plants now potbound and in need of spacious homes in the garden. I had spotted some tomato cages on sale at my favorite discount store and had bought thirty six, thinking that would be enough. I used six to set out the eggplant seedlings in last year's tomato patch, planting squash seeds in a ring around them and a few cantaloupe seeds in the space between them. I figured they could grow around the base of the eggplants and make good use of the space.

The tomatoes got a patch of sunny ground next to them and another patch on another side, making a letter L of ground covered with circular wire tomato cages very roughly spaced in my usual unsuccessful effort to line things up neatly in my garden. Mom came out and started laughing at it. She said that it looked like the Teletubbies had taken over the garden. I pointed out that it didn't look much different from the wire coil curlers in her hair. They both looked like they had been attacked by Martian antennas. She snorted and reminded me that she was going to a play the next night, then followed a hungry cat back into the house.

By the time I had gotten all that done, several hours had passed and the flower seedlings were clearly going to enjoy more time on the terrace. Weeds had come up in their beds, too, and I wasn't up to hoeing that much. I washed my hands, slipped some TV dinners in the oven, and joined the family in the living room in response to my brother's cheerful cry that the weatherman was forecasting a frost for that night.

I couldn't believe it. It had to be an April Fool's joke, but he kept earnestly insisting that it wasn't. He was as nervously alert as he usually was when warning us of an imminent disaster in the area, absolutely sure that areas around the city would be hit with freezing temperatures and insisting that temperatures would dip to dangerous near-freezing lows in the city.

I couldn't believe it as he went on about clearing skies and heat radiating out into space. I didn't have anything but mulch to protect that many plants already in the ground, and it was already ringed around the plants as much as I dared since I didn't want to smother them.

The cats kept doing their noisy let-me-out cries through the evening, with Mom calling them back in so they wouldn't freeze after a few minutes outdoors. I kept an eye on the outdoor thermometer, still registering temperatures in the balmy 50's and only slowly dropping. I finally left it in the Lord's hands and went to bed.

I woke up about four o'clock the next morning with a cat curled up on the foot of my bed. He quickly noticed signs of returning consciousness and insisted on being fed a fresh can of cat food. After a hearty breakfast, he went to the door and insisted on being let out again.

I opened the door, bracing myself for a blast of cold air when I opened the storm door to release him into the wintry dawn. There wasn't a blast of cold air at all. I turned on the light and squinted at the outdoor thermometer. It was only 44 degrees F outside. The earnestly predicted frost had failed to materialize. I resisted the temptation to curse the weatherman, got a snack, and went back to bed.

I was too sore and tired to plant those flowers the next day, so they'll have to wait until my muscles decide to cooperate again. The transplanted seedlings look pretty good with no signs of frost damage at all. They had been hardened off on the terrace for several weeks, so they should be okay barring a genuine frost.

I celebrated by picking the first spring spinach harvest to fix for lunch. The plants were so tender and good that I was tempted to go out for more. I'm trying to make them last until more vegetables mature in the garden, since they make such fine spring salads as well as side dishes.