Brenda,
I am going to be more adventurous in the futurre - as I find time. But the USDA hardiness (average minimum winter temp) isn't my main problem for tomatoes and peppers - nor is the length of the frost-free growing season.
Instead it's just that summers are usually cool, and never hot. "Warm" would be nice for a change!
I should look into something like "degree days" out of curiousity, but the numbers don't mean as much as trying something. My next adventure will be starting them from seeds. But I would like to do that with some hoop tunnels or a cold frame available, since my one indoor shelf is already much more than fully spoken for by other things.
Indeed, some motivated people can grow tomatoes almost anywhere: Sub-Artic Plenty was allegedly developed in the 1940's for troops stationed in Greenland.
