I'm from Northern California, but Sacramento, not the Bay Area. Probably not what you are looking for, but I just had to comment because my name is the same as yours. Don't see that spelling too often!

Kristi

Sacramento for me also.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sacramento Garden Blog

Hi,
I am in Concord, off Clayton Road.

I'm in Sunol, just S of Pleasanton. I have many starts and seed.

I think there's a santa clara CRFG meeting on the 11th, mark your calendars. ;)

I'm in SF Bay, but I'm in Campbell.

I'm in marin so a bit over the GG Bridge.

I'm in Orland, in the North part of the Sacramento Valley. Orland is about 100 mi. north of Sacramento. Our climate is way different then that in the Bay Area.
Donna

Hello! Just saying hello to the original poster and the one after... I'm another Kristi with the same spelling. :)

And I'm also from the East Bay. I live in Dublin, which is about 15-20 minutes south of Walnut Creek.

I'm in the heart of the city, but still trying in earnest to grow tomatoes.

I'm in Fremont, just outside of Niles Canyon

Im from Hayward right now I have peas, carrots, and broccoli. I planted lettuce seeds but they didn't sprout. Maybe its because of my clay soil? Is broccoli a winter or a spring vegetable in our area?

I dont know what you mean by swap but I'm in Santa Clara.
Damon

Hi, yes still here.
I've gone mostly to SWC(Earthtainer) gardening.
Actually about to go out and do some irrigation work in about 5 miutes :)
I will be using one raised sq ft bed, and 7 EarthTainers with
12 tomatoes, 12 peppers, 4 cucumbers and lots of bush beans, dwarf snap peas in my sq ft bed.
Just noticed this morning that some of my beans are popping up and one of my cuccumbers popped!

If you want some pepper or Tomato seedlings I have extras.
This was my first year from seed and I sowed wayyyy to many not expecting such success

Brian

Bob

That is so generous to offer your extra seedlings. What type of tomato and peppers do you have? Also I am interested in earthtainers but very intimiodated by them. Let me know how it goes for u.

This is my first year gardening (I just moved out of downtown sf). We have 1 4x12 foot bed and also about to finish a 3x16. I am going to put in ground in a week or so 9 tomatoes, 6 melons, 1 long bean, 1 pepper, 1 zucchinni,1 cucumber, spring mix, arugala, strawberries and varioud herbs.

Whatever does fit in garden will go in containers.

Eric62687:

Here's a handy dandy planting guide from the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County

Here is a link that might be useful: Planting Guide for Santa Clara County

Big Beef, Sungold, CH Purple, Red Brandywine, Lemon Boy, Better Boy Tom

Various Bells, Jally, sweet Bannana, Pinento Peppers

Thanks for the link it did help. I was late planting just about everything in my garden. Oh well live and learn right

Another Sacramento area gardener checking in...

All of you SF area gardeners are making me smile! I lived and gardened in Brisbane, just south of SF, for many years. Now, I garden in Pennsylvania, which is quite a different type of gardening!

Enjoy your extended season and wonderful culinary wild mushrooms!
Bellatrix

Anyone grow melons in the east bay? How did they do?

eric, i am going to give melon's a try this year...i am in marin and have similiar temps as east bay...maybe a few degrees cooler.

i am trying to grow: charentais, arava, orange honeydew

Wow there are so many of us here!

Brian, thanks for the offer. I may well take you up on it. With that many tomatoes, you're seriously going to be able to open up a fruit stand. That's the running joke in our house, too... In addition to our many boxes, I just bought 4 fruit trees, I'm devoting 2 boxes just to strawberries, and I have about 8 blueberry bushes. Now if only I can just get some of this to produce. LOL

Why did you end up going to earthtainers, if you don't mind me asking?

And does anyone know if there's a Master Gardener contra costa list of when to plant?

Thanks,
KMama

Tammy how much room are you giving your melons? I have a small garden 16x9 ft. I've seen a lot of seeds for small vine watermelons and cantalopes but not for honeydew. Do you know of any?

I know melons probably aren't right for my garden. Espically since I want to grow other things this summer besides melons. I want to grow 1 or 2 bell pepper plants 1 tomato, 1 melon, and 1 cucmber. Is this too much for my garden? Thanks for helping me plan my first garden

I'm going to stick with the basic muskmelon here in the Walnut Creek area. I do them SFG style up a netting. But this year I'm going to give them wider spacing than what SFG dictates. I managed to get 1 little melon last year from 1 plant. And I admit I failed miserably at the whole watering/mulching thing. I'm going to try again. I'd like to try some of the other varieties you mentioned, but don't have enough boxes for all the things I'm growing.

Why do you think Melons aren't right for your garden. Hayward has lots of warm spots. You might just want to focus on an early melon, or the muskmelon that are well suited to our climates. (Listen to me... he he all knowledgeable and stuff. LOL)

I picked up a book at the library (also sold by a few of the local nurseries) called Golden Gate Gardening. It talks about gardening in our bay area climate and breaks it into the sort of cooler microclimates and sunnier (i.e. east of the tunnel) climates. It's been an eye opener for me on which types to buy, when to plant, etc.

I think they aren't right for my garden because it's small and melon plants take up a lot of space.

Hi eric
I'm not sure how much room I'm gonna give them. Maybe 4 sq ft but up a trellis. I bought seedlings from www.naturalgardener.com and spoke to them about what does well in bay area. They are located in sonoma so I felt confident they would steer me right.

They have a bunch of melon and tomato seedlings.

Sacramento born and raised see the name.
I live in a perfect spot for gardening Home Depot is 5 walking minutes away from my house. = P
I'm in the Arden area
This is my 1st year growing vegetables I can't wait to eat my 1st tomato. Good Luck.

I'm growing at my house in Oakland and I'm also growing at my parents house in Clayton. I've been a finish carpenter going on ten years so I've managed to build some nice raised beds with picket fences on the perimeter (the fence keeps the dogs out at the Clayton site; also looks nice)We've been able to put bed sheets (from the beds we sleep in) over the raised bed during noon time sun and it has helped with the colder weather plants such as broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts. I have 19 raised beds in all. There's a big weather difference once you get on either side of the Caldecott tunnel. The cold weather plants like it more on the Alameda side of the tunnel and the citrus and fruits lie it better in the Contra Costa County side. It really helps to have the raised beds with a fence like I have in order to control the temperature/sunlight. You can build all sorts of structures without spending the $$$- I've seen some PVC piping used to make green house type structures and what not...you simplly want to be able to control the growing environment and raised beds do the trick :) (sorry for the long message)

I'm working an 5'x18' rasied bed in Burlingame/San Mateo - am I the only one on the Peninnsula?

Brad

Im in San Jose area. Im a newbie so instead of swapping ideas, i'd probably be mooching them hahah

First year gardener from Alameda ...

South San Jose, I have 4 raised beds with squash, tomato, cukes, sweet peppers, chard, kohl-rabi and bunching onions.. Also some yard long beans along a fence and first time to grow cantaloup on a trellis.

I'm in Sunnyvale. This is my third summer in this house so I'm finally finding my garden groove. I grow mostly edibles and natives, lots of summer vegetables and fruit trees.

I'm up in the Sierra Foothills (Ione, CA)We have corn, green beans, black eyed peas, okra, tomatoes, zuc and yellow crook necks, armeanian cukes, watermelons, and honey dew, had fresh zucs last night!!

Checking in from Vallejo. Just a little bit north of Walnut Creek there. I would say the climate for Vallejo is in between a Walnut Creek and Alameda. We don't get many super hot days here but we get some wind. And I cannot remember the last time we had frost. That's right people can be jealous I said it. Almost never frosts. This will be my first year gardening as well so like many of you this will be a learning/mooching info year for me as well. SO far I have no plants in ground,SIGH, since my soil is terrible and will require a bit of work to make it habitable. But I do have a few things potted that are doing well. I have a yellow bell pepper and 4 green bells. As well as 2 green been plants going. I will be happy to help with posting my results in my own micro-climate.

Brad, you're not the only one on the Peninsula - I'm in San Carlos.

So far, growing tomatoes, jalapenos, thai chilis, zucchini, straightneck squash, collards, bush beans and a very, very late crop of English peas, which now have powdery mildew. >:( Some are in raised beds, some are in pots, and others still are in a terraced area of the yard.

* Posted by tammysf 9b/10a or sz15/16 (My Page) on
Mon, Apr 6, 09 at 17:45

eric, i am going to give melon's a try this year...i am in marin and have similiar temps as east bay...maybe a few degrees cooler.

i am trying to grow: charentais, arava, orange honeydew

Hi Tammy,

I'm in Marin too, in the San Geronimo Valley, where overnight lows don't usually get up to the 50's until JUNE! I'm trying melons this year as well, and if I get some sweet ones I think it'll be some sort of a miracle. My sister lives near Larkspur, and has a completely different climate there (she can easily grow bouganvillea). Good luck with your melons!

Hey lelia

Great to see another marinite on here. Very familiar with geronimo valley as I spent my early years in fairfax. Now in san rafael

First year gardening and I would love to get some melons but the weather hasn't been great last few weeks.

I have a blog that I update often

Here is a link that might be useful: northern california gardening blog

I'm a SF gardener just for today! Visiting friends in Richmond, dug up their weed-infested tiny backyard plot (something with dandelion-like puff-balls but not dandelion) and planted chard and pole-beans. No amendments, no fertilizer. We'll see, the soil though quite sandy looks pretty fertile and I reckon this area is not acidic?

Don't know what the soil is like out there, but I do want to say this: look out for the cabbage moths! I only grew two collards this year, and they've all but eaten them both up. Very disappointing, and I've given up going out every day to squash newly emerging caterpillars.

I am in San Jose, I am slowly replacing my flower garden with veg garden for about a year now. Its now a cottage garden - mixture of some flowers and a lot of herbs and vegetables. About 30 tomatoes, 6 bushes of basil, 20+ cayenne pepper, 6 cauliflowers (6 made great dinner in the last few weeks), 20+ swiss chards and lots of greens (spinach, mustard, fenugreek etc...). 4 zucchini, eggplants, daikon, okra, corn, beans, cucumber, luffa, soybean. My garden is a long raised bed that was originally all ivy vine. spent a lot of time converting into nice flower garden and now converting it into backyard veg garden. I look forward to coming home from work and spending time in my garden. Got lots of ripe plum that I am ready to share.

Hayward here (though now we're retired we spend a lot of time in Baja - no veggies there - just cactus!)

First year garden at this location. I was late getting started because I had to till, bring in soil amendments, till, bring in sand and till some more - still not totally happy with the soil, but ran out of patience. First seedlings didn't get planted out until May 10th - but I ate my first squash yesterday (had to borrow a male flower from my neighbor to pollinate it)and will have bush beans and beet tops within a week.

Tomatoes (17 varieties, 22 plants)are full of blossoms and seem to be setting fruit, as are the various cukes, peppers and eggplants. Snap peas are flowering, as are the potatoes (will pinch them off tomorrow), green onions are over a foot tall and Elephant garlic is similar.

Have various lettuces growing in a Flowerhouse Seedhouse, along with some Chinese Cabbage. Multiple melons, mostly musk type, went in the ground today. Gonna try to train the little devils to climb - the cukes caught on quite quickly. Winter squash (Dumpling, Delicata, Spaghetti & Butternut) goes in tomorrow.

So far the only 'dud' was the English Peas, they went in right before the 3 day heatwave last month and got crisped - got about 3 peas off each vine and they never got above 6 inches tall. Of course, since then we have had no heat at all and cold winds every day (which is why the melons only just graduated from the Seedhouse).

From here on, it's just a daily battle between me and the multitude of bugs that want to beat me to the harvest and I am determined they will not win!

I'm in Sacramento, too. Sac will turn the most hardened urban dweller into a gardener! Throw tomato seeds on the ground and in months you're enveloped in a tomato forest. :)

We are tomato country.

We have rivers running through us, giving us great soil that needs little to no amendments.

Wow, with all these bay area gardeners, no wonder Baker Creek Seeds opened an outlet in Petaluma. It opened in June, and I haven't gone yet, but I will soon. Here's an article about it: Old bank building 'goes to seed'

(By the way, tammysf, loved the blog and the photos).

On the peninsula in Los Altos.
Tomatoes: 13 plants, some fruit set already, but still green.
Pole beans: 2 varieties twining up the poles.
Onions: Walla walla getting fat.
Potatoes: fingerlings & a blue type and one other, plants lush & green, some flowers.
Carrots: just sowed, Nantes is all I do.
Peppers: sowed seeds a while ago, know general location, but not sure if what's come up is peppers since I sowed annual flowers too in that area and it has been so cool.
ONE zucchini: Ha, learned my lesson.
Melon: sowed Bolivian melon seed (thanks Wayne Perrier), plants are starting to ramble. Who knows!
The fig crop looks good and there are lots of apples, but the squirrels can be good or bad. Last year they were very bad; this year so far they don't appear to be too smart, but I think they have discovered the apple trees. Maybe I'll tie some bags over some bunches of apples. It works. Squirrels don't shop.