Hi! I'm new to the site and very new to gardening. Are there any other San Franciscans here? I tried to look up a planting calendar but because we don't have any frost, there wasn't one. I'm hoping to plant a few easy, low maintenance veggies and MAYBE some flowers in a smallish raised bed. 10 years ago we tried a small garden and successfully grew lettuce and herbs and had ok-enough success with small tomatoes. I want to plant small (cherry?) tomatoes again and one or two other veggies or MAYBE strawberries?

One problem I am having is finding our zone. SF has so many micro-climates, it's really hard to figure out what mine is. Does anyone have any advice for figuring that out?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
Rebekah

Hey Rebekah!!! Sorry to be late with a greeting. Been kinda slow in the forum and I think most folks are following along on established threads. I'm just a newbie gardener, started my recent garden back in 2017 here in south Alabama. Been a roller-coaster of an adventure so far...deer raids, coyote raids, human (me) raids.<grin>

I think you'll find some folks from your area here, give a little time. But, as you mentioned, there are several micro-climate areas in SF...but you didn't say which one you're in....bay area?....foggy area?....other area?

Probably for day-length purposes and general temperature ranges you can use a generic planting guide. You receive little to no frost so that's really not an issue. It looks like April thru October is your warmer months with June thru September being the warmest. But, with your temperatures you can grow things all year. The warmer months maybe for heat-loving plants.

You may have already looked, but this is a link to the Old Farmer's Almanac listing for San Francisco: https://www.almanac.com/garden... . Maybe it will give you a framework for the "who, what, where, and when" for your plantings.

If nothing else maybe my post will stir up other folks to respond. And, once again, welcome to the forum...lots of great folks and info here!

Best wishes!
Ed

Try this link...
https://planthardiness.ars.usd...

You can zoom way in and see the microclimates in your area. You'll be either Zone 10a or 10b.

This page http://acmg.ucanr.edu/Your_Gar... from Alameda County next door to you, gives a nice list of when to plant and when to perform other garden chores.

Good luck!

Not sure, but this was the OP's only post here on the forum and she hasn't been back in a week. Hopefully she'll return.

Hi! I'm sorry for the delayed response! Thank you so much for your suggestions! They are very helpful!

To answer the question of our location, I'm in San Francisco in the Outer Richmond, close to the ocean. Our warmest days historically (75* or warmer) are generally in the Fall ... August -October. Very backwards. Summer months are cool and foggy with pockets of sunshine, but not a lot of heat. I couldn't grow regular tomatoes, for example, or peppers.

I'm wondering if I might be able to plant some root vegetables and potatoes now, since it is so cool, even though those are normally Fall veggies??

Warmly,
Rebekah

No problem, glad to see you back!

Have you tried growing tomatoes at this temperature? Don't give up on them. In searching I found these varieties listed for cooler weather growing: Early Girl, Celebrity, Golden Nugget, Husky Gold, Orange Pixie, Oregon Spring, and Siletz. Early Girl is a good one, from peoples accounts, though I've never tried it. Down here in south Alabama we tend to need plants that do well in hot and humid weather. Tomatoes need warm soil for germinating but after they're up they do ok in cool temperatures as long as they can get some sun. Remember, there are lots of tomatoes that are native to the Andes Mountains in South America. Having said all that, you can wait until your warmer temperatures and have that much more going for you being as your warm months are still cool compared to ours. One tip I have is to grow cherry tomatoes, they seem to grow fairly fast and aren't as susceptible to disease as slicing tomatoes are. There's also some peppers that do fairly well in cooler weather.

For the temperatures that I'm seeing listed for your I found this short list of cooler season vegetables to grow:
asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chives, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, Swiss chard, kale, leek, lettuce, onion, parsnips, peas (snap, sugar, etc), radishes, spinach, and turnips. Quiet a list there!

Now, being landlocked by close to 100 miles I'm not as affected by a large body of water as you are so I don't know how that will affect vegetables. I know that some folks up on the NE seaboard have a similar growing zone as I do here in the south because of the moderating effect of the Atlantic Ocean.

Those temperatures sound good for root and leaf crops.

Tobekah said:Hi! I'm sorry for the delayed response! Thank you so much for your suggestions! They are very helpful!

To answer the question of our location, I'm in San Francisco in the Outer Richmond, close to the ocean. Our warmest days historically (75* or warmer) are generally in the Fall ... August -October. Very backwards. Summer months are cool and foggy with pockets of sunshine, but not a lot of heat. I couldn't grow regular tomatoes, for example, or peppers.

I'm wondering if I might be able to plant some root vegetables and potatoes now, since it is so cool, even though those are normally Fall veggies??

Warmly,
Rebekah

Good to have you here. I was once stationed in San Francisco ( Treasure Island to be more specific) so I can understand the tomato problem. Wonderful Weather in winter. Summer was cool and foggy. Not ideal for tomatoes so I suspect it will take a lot of extra effort. I will not even pretend to give you advice. There are some Bay area folks who come into the forum from time to time. Hopefully they will show up soon and be able to share their successes and failures. I would expect potatoes would be an ideal spring crop as would turnips, beets, English peas, onions etc.