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Jul 30, 2013 6:20 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
Hi, Liza, and welcome!

>> i was getting ready to just declare myself a hopeless gardener

Oh, no! It would be premature to say that until you've been trying for 3 or more years, and still had little success. Not knowing what to do, feeling overwhelmed, and killing lots of plants IS what gardening is for the first year or two!

P.S. If you can find a nearby neighbor who gardens, you can learn from her. If she thinks a certain plant is "easy to grow", do what she does. If she thinks something is "hard to grow", look for advice from someone else!

P.S. ATP has a member map, which lets you find nearby people, say if you hope to swap seedlings or produce some year. In this case, at this time, Fresno, just Kelli.
http://garden.org/users/member...

But there is a regional forum dedicated to (southern) Pacific Coast Gardening:
http://garden.org/forums/view/...
They might be a good resource for difficult things and more-exact, optimum dates for your region.


>> fresno ca is zone 9b

Well, that only means that the average minimum temperature in mid-winter is around 30 F. You can grow almost any perennial plant that isn't a total tropical fuss-budget, and it won't die from winter cold. (But it might die from drought or heat in the summer - the USDA Hardiness Zone doesn't say anything about summer climate).

Check out the Sunset Climate Zones for a more useful climate description of your area. It looks to me like you're on the border of Sunset Zone 8 and 9:
http://www.sunset.com/garden/c...

Sunset ZONE 8: Cold-air basins of California’s Central Valley f[u]floor] - no citrus
Sunset ZONE 9

{Sunset} "Zones 8 and 9 have the following features in common: summer daytime temperatures are high, sunshine is almost constant during the growing season, and growing seasons are long. Deciduous fruits and vegetables of nearly every kind thrive in these long, hot summers; "
also:
" Plants that like summer coolness and humidity demand some fussing; careful gardeners accommodate them by providing filtered shade from tall trees and plenty of moisture.":

It sounds to me as if you may have to water the bed.
Perhaps you're like the hot parts of Texas: some plants that "need full sun" in every other region, might just benefit from some mid-summer shade where you live!

Tomatoes stop bearing fruit around 90 F and higher - maybe peppers are similar?

Some other climate considerations are:

- when to expect frost that is hard enough to bother a particular crop. You might be able to grow some kinds of lettuce and Bok Choy right through most of your winter by giving them a little cover before each hard frost hits. Have you considered Tatsoi in addition to lettuce and Bok Choy? It's very cold-hardy.

- the days between your last spring frost and first fall frost are your "growing season" - how long is it? A crop's seed packet should list "Days To Maturity". Your growing season has to be longer than that DTM! It sounds like you have a long, hot summer and no worries about DTM.

- heat loving plants like beans, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, will want a certain number of days and nights ABOVE the minimum temperatures that they like. I bet you will have a lot of choices down there: in the Pacific NorthWest, summers are barely warm enough for tomatoes.

(I don't know much about vegetables overheating in the summer.)

>> So i will narrow down my list to bokchoi,, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower. cabbage, eggplants, green/red bellpeppers, jalapeno peppers, california peppers.

Here's my thought, but seed packets and local gardening neighbors may contradict me:

- - - - Cool-weather crops for spring and fall and maybe some of the winter:
bokchoi,, spinach, kale, broccoli, peas
lettuce, tatsoi
cauliflower (?). cabbage (?),


- - - - Summer heat-lovers:
BEANS, eggplants, green/red bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, california peppers.
cauliflower. cabbage,

If part of your summer is too hot, too dry or too sunny, you could use hoops and drape some shade cloth over some rows! Then, if you decide that you want spinach, lettuce or Bok Choy all winter, plant some fall and late fall crops, then drape clear plastic over them before it gets very cold.

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