Unfortunately, USDA minimum winter temperature zones don't tell the whole story. In the winter and spring, its it sunny and mild between cold fronts, or cool, damp and gray most of the time? How often does it rain? Does it snow much? Does the ground ever freeze in winter? Is the ground too muddy to plant in until late into spring? Also, what are the day lengths like? Climate zones notwithstanding, the latitude of extreme southern France is roughly the same as Albany, NY, and the latitude of northern France is about the same as Spokane, WA. So the winter days are going to be short and the winter sunlight will be a lot less intense than we have here in North Florida. The very best thing you could do is befriend a local gardener and ask WHEN the proper time is to plant. Try to get seeds for local vegetable varieties, because they should be better adapted to the climate and soil. (Actually, if you can get the local seed packets translated, they might tell you the recommended planting dates!) There are some cool season crops that mature in 45 days or less - radishes, and beets, many types of lettuce, green onions, some kinds of spinach, and some greens for example. Also some of the cool-weather herbs like cilantro would get big enough to harvest leaves in about that time. You could probably harvest these by June in any part of France except in the mountains. However, if you are in a warmer area of France and can plant cool-season crops at least 75-90 days before you leave, then you can grow almost any cool season crop - peas, carrots, large radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, and any kind of greens. (Two cool-weather crops you probably can't grow are Brussels sprouts and parsnips, because they take over 100 days.) If you're in a southern area, you might also be able to get new potatoes. Don't forget cool-weather herbs like parsley. You can also plant cool-tolerant flowers such as pansies, petunias, sweet alyssum, and snapdragons. But I would guess that you won't have time to get harvests from warm-season vegetables (corn, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, etc.) unless you have access to a greenhouse. You can effectively add a few weeks to your growing season if you can start seeds inside under lights and then transplant them out into a cold frame, hoop house or other structure to protect and warm your plants. (I don't know your time, space or money budget for gardening.) A book on season extending, like "The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live" could be a big help. You may not have the resources to build the structures in the book, but the knowledge might still be helpful in figuring your own ways to adapt to a different climate. I've also attached a link to an article about gardening in France, which describes some of the different climate patterns in France and has some links to some other gardening articles. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetable Gardening in France

A good number of seed companies now sell "organic" seeds - Seeds of Change, Abundant Life, Territorial Seeds, Ed Hume, even the mainstream seed companies like Burpees and Park Seeds. Just check at your local garden center. "Best" is a matter of personal opinion - depends on what you want to grow and if you want heirloom varieties, etc. Seeds are seeds pretty much :-) There are some differences of opinion on what makes organic seed 'organic'. In some cases, it is just any seed that is not genetically modified. With others who are a bit more dogmatic about the principal, it is refined to those seeds "certified" organic or derived from plants grown without any additions of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Unless you are splitting hairs, I'm not sure it makes any difference if the seed you start with is certified organic or not - it is the method of growing the plant that results from the seed that is of primary concern. How you water the plant is of similar questionable importance. In more urbanized areas (and that includes most of the west coast) even rainwater will carry pollutants (i.e., "acid rain") that can deliver chemicals to the plants but typically in such minor levels as to be insignificant. And most tap water is treated as well for bacterial content and other harmful properties. For most folks intending to grow organic foods for home consumption, just avoiding any synthetically derived chemical fertilizers and pesticides is sufficient. If you want to grow certified organic produce for sale, that's a bit different and does require other steps.

I live in Jacksonville zone 9A, only a few miles southeast of the 8b border. I have an orange tree and a ruby red grapefruit tree that have both survived 9 degree nights (I checked the weather records, the trees are at least 25 years old, so I was able to look up the lowest temps they'd been exposed to.) Most winters we will drop into the mid 20's to upper 20's for at least a week at night, with an occasional drop into the teens that happens once every few years. My neighbor has a tree of a similar age, it is a swingle citrumelo now because the scion froze and only the rootstock survived. The reason why my trees are alive is because they are on their own roots. They are not grafted, someone grew them from a seed. When the tree is ungrafted, unless the earth the roots are in freezes solid, they will come back from the roots even if everything above ground is killed off. I would recommend experimenting with rooted cuttings of anything you'd like. Seeds may be better, I think you'll be more likely to find something that can live on its own, but they will not fruit for 5-10 years, so it depends on your patience. I think just fruits and exotics sells certain types of citrus ungrafted, they sold me a variegated eureka lemon and said those worked better with no rootstock. Many of your plants will die due to the soil conditions on your property. Those that can tolerate your soil should be planted on the south side of your house, and frame protected when young. When they get too big for that, just watering them well before a freeze should save them 95% of the time. The difficult part will be finding something that can grow in your soil with no graft. Once you do, the cold is much less of a problem than for a grafted tree. One warning-- most citrus is dwarfed by the rootstock, my ungrafted grapefruit is 25 feet tall and about 15 feet wide. Think about space considerations and the eventual spread of the canopy and roots when planting close to your house, as citrus roots can be invasive.

White silver queen corn like my Dad said at feed&seed store if better Silver Queen h did not want it. I live out in country from Glennville Georgia