so who planted a garden and are now concernced with the weather?

I always here that, but Easter can be in late April which is too late in South Louisiana.

I did and completely forgot about it until reading this, am concerned to get home and check it now

This is my first year gardening. How long after planting should you expect to see growth? I planted tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, cilantro, and green onion.

You still wait until Good Friday even when it's in late April?

I also have a question about composting. This is our first real attempt at a larger garden. I've grown stuff in pots before but never in raised beds like I'm going to. I used to plant tomatoes in the old raised beds we had before I tore them out years ago. My dogs kept eating tomatoes off the vine. My wife heard about coffee grounds and we have been saving those along with apple and banana peels. As well as egg shells. Any other tips? Right now it is about 90% used coffee grounds. I've been filling up a large yogurt container and will move it to a 5 gal bucket when it fills up.

My questions are what else could I toss in there that would be beneficial as well as how much to add to the dirt.

I've planted. covered everything with sheets last night so hopefully everything does fine. at least the frost didn't get on anything

RE: weather, no worries for me in zone 9b. It was cool, but not really worrying for tomatoes or peppers here. I plant that stuff early, but I generally wait until April to plant the real hot-weather loving stuff like eggplants & tomatillos.

RE: soil amendments/composting...it's great to collect organic waste (coffee grounds, peelings, etc), but that stuff needs to decompose before you put it into your garden. Make yourself a simple compost pile in an out of the way corner of your yard...if you want, put some chickenwire or hardware cloth around it, dump your goodies inside (grass clippings, too; raked leaves, etc). Water it when the weather gets dry, turn it every few weeks. Microorganisms, worms, etc from the soil will do the rest. In 3-9 months, you'll have compost to add to your raised beds. Think about putting it in a dog-proof spot, as the critters may want to 'graze' on your compost pile.

Adding undecomposed matter to your garden soil can be problematic. Too much, and it can decrease productivity as the stuff decomposes. It can also smell a bit, attract critters, and not decompose as quickly as it would in a piled-up situation. If you want to amend those beds for this season, go buy some prepared compost in bags at your local garden center. The NO Composting Network stuff is good.

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.it's great to collect organic waste (coffee grounds, peelings, etc), but that stuff needs to decompose before you put it into your garden

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You can put coffee grounds directly into your garden; they do not need to compost. Peelings, etc do need to compost. My experience with composting is putting any fruit remains (apples, tomatoes specially) in the bin draws fruit flies. So I only put veggie remains and yard waste such as leaves and grass clippings.

I got lucky and will be doing it this coming weekend because of my schedule. I saw mid to upper 30s last night late