To mention that weather in Kansas alternates between extremes is to state the obvious, but for vegetable gardeners such facts of life are of supreme importance. If the early going is any indication, this may be a particularly volatile gardening season.

Consider the following: Already this spring we have had several days of 80-degree temperatures followed by a succession of record overnight lows that froze the asparagus crop where it stood. As recently as last week, the ground was drying out and some gardeners were turning on the tap, which is highly unusual in early May. Then, last week the rains came, in sheets and torrents, and now we are near our year-to-date average for this area.

In Kansas, the vegetable gardener’s rule of thumb should be to plan for every contingency and to be surprised by nothing.

How to proceed in what is shaping up to be an unusually unpredictable season is the question. As usual, different crops require different approaches. The sharp temperature swings are always going to be hardest on vegetables that need warm weather, and in particular warm soil, to get started.

People who had planted bean seed prior to the late-April cold snap lost that crop. Those who reseeded last week when the temperatures settled in the 80s for a few days may lose that planting as well. The overnight lows this weekend in northeast Kansas were in the 30s, and one thing bean seed does not like is cold, damp soil.

By the end of this week, after the temperatures have again risen into the 80s, you will know whether your beans will take. Because beans quickly can make up for lost time, with adequate watering, you still can sow more seed through the next week or two. Your window closes when the temperatures top 90, because most varieties of bean like to germinate in milder weather.

Cold temperatures and damp soil also will harm sweet corn. Seed that either sat in the ground through the cold snap or germinated just before it hit may be lost. Sweet corn also can be replanted in the next few weeks, although the crop may be very late, depending on the variety and growing time it requires.

Anyone who lost squash and cucumbers also can replant them in the next few weeks.

Gardeners who had tomatoes and peppers in the ground during the freeze lost at least the top leaves of their plants and in some cases entire plants. Of 14 tomato plants I had in the ground at the time, just two were killed.

The conventional wisdom is that tomato plants exposed to such extreme cold will not set fruit as vigorously as they would otherwise. While I was not interested in discarding all of the beleaguered survivors, I also wanted to ensure that I have a tomato harvest this summer. So I replaced the fatalities, left most of the bedraggled plants in the ground, and added a dozen more just in case. If all of my plants produce, I will be swimming in tomatoes in July.

As an aside, the cold snap taught me more about where the microclimates are located in my garden. Frost does not fall evenly on a garden, and wind exposure and proximity to other plants and structure, such as trees, make a difference. For example, one Brandywine plant was killed by the cold, while another sitting 12 feet away is doing well. Unfortunately, we cannot see these processes work unless we have weather that produces adverse impacts on the garden.