Alameda is in the East Bay, but SF is not far away. In the East Bay, is the Berkeley Botanical Garden. In January it will be cool (upper 50's to low 60's. In San Francisco the Stribing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park (9th Ave. and Lincoln Way) is a must--great plants, many sub-tropical, and a beautiful garden. Nearby there are lots of great places to eat or have tea on 9th ave. Also in GG park is the history Conservatory Of Flowers--tropical plants as well as the 19th century architecture of the building itself. GG park itself is also worth driving around--so many neat little hidden meadows ponds and lakes. South of SF on the coast is Half Moon Bay. I am over there all the time. I like to visit Half Moon Bay Nursery--it has a nice greenhouse area of houseplants as well as another greenhouse full of succulents. A nice inexpensive seafood restaurant at the Marina is Ketch Joanne. HMB is very pretty with farms, huge commercial greenhouses and open space making for a good way to visit the Pacific Ocean. Downtown HMB is full of nice shops full of high end art and crafts. My housemate Charles has a shop next to a grove of gigantic rust metal dinosaurs. Our neighbor, who has the dinosaurs, has a great outdoor gardening sculpture and pottery business, but what would you do with a 300 lb fountain? He rarely sells the dinosaurs, because they are so huge; but they are a great stop for tourists with kids, and he just likes having them. He keeps adding more. People are always stopping to check them out and take pictures. Olive trees do well around here but there haven't been local commercial groves for many years. There may be some to the north near Sonoma, another very picturesque town with historic buildings and shops. Alicia might know. A junior college (Canada College) near me is built on land that once was an olive grove. There are many old trees, growing wild, up and down the hillside and in a seldom visited little canyon. I get olive seedlings coming up in my yard all the time as the birds drop the seeds. Jon

I hadn't meant to be abusive of Joe's points, just a counterpoint. Just a note about Urban Farmer's services, they are a full service irrigation store, and sell all the materials to install a conventional spray irrigation system as well. I would like to counter one of Joe's points, about drip irrigation being cheaper to install. I don't find that to be the case, in the systems I design and install, there is more hand labor involved to get emitter line to individual plants, so I'd say that the different systems are probably about on par or even slightly more expensive for a drip irrigation when using higher quality/more reliable fittings and materials. Also, as to the point about needing pressure regulators for drip systems, what is your point? The pressure regulator is not some expensive or elaborate device prone to failure, and even a conventional spray irrigation system will often require a pressure regulator at the valves if the house or street pressures are too high. Where drip irrigation excels is the benefits of using it on difficult to water steep slopes where spray irrigation would cause run-off at the higher application rates, and is not as good at giving deeper watering. You can also get away with using less valves with a larger area of coverage in a typical garden setting, because the water flows required are less volume and pressure. As to maintenance and repairs, I often find that clients with dogs and conventional spray irrigation systems may have more need of regular inspections to repair broken irrigation heads, especially if they conflict with a large dog running along an open metal fence at the street. As well, pop-up spray irrigation heads are equally prone to damage from autos driving over them or lawn mower blades clipping them, and when broken and set to run overnight, the wasted water will be far more wasteful than it would be with a lower flow/lower pressure drip system. I would not waste my time trying to convince someone who has their mind made up about their preferences in irrigation systems, but it is not as black and white as Joe would make it appear. Everyone should irrigate in a way that makes sense for their particular situation. I simply believe that drip irrigation in combination with micro-spray drip can create superb results while also using less water overall. Joe's contention that drip irrigation does not permit deep rooting of plants is only germane for those who don't run their systems long enough to wet the soil deeply. This is also very much a concern with spray systems as well, as most gardeners simply don't know how long it can take to deeply water a clay soil. Most spray systems will cause run-off in clay soils if watered for more than 10 to 15 minutes on a sloping site, and this won't wet the soil much beyond the first inch or two. Not to mention the water lost to wind/over throw spray, and evaporated water lost to the hot sun in combination with winds. In any case, both spray and drip irrigation design have their pros and cons, and the majority of residential homeowners are more likely to be timing their irrigation by schedules rather than plant needs, nor do most adjust their watering schedules more than once or twice a year to reflect the weather and seasons. In specifying which type of system makes more sense for an individual homeowner/client, it helps to weigh all the factors that should influence such a decision. While working as a landscape architect for a large firm doing subdivision homes for a developer, I had occasion to design a subsurface system using Netafim for lawns in this development. I can tell you that it drove the new home buyers crazy, as too many didn't trust that it was working properly, and would reset their individual home's irrigation controllers to vastly overwater the lawns, as they couldn't see it working. While it may make sense to use such a system for a commons area landscape that isn't subject to the whims of different homeowners, I wouldn't recommend it again for the average garden. The one place I would always recommend a spray system over a drip system would be for a client who can't control their dog's digging and chewing of things in the garden. A drip system will be much more vulnerable to damage in such a garden. I've also found that the most common animal damage to drip irrigation systems in my experience has been with squirrels chewing off the hard plastic mister heads I use in gardens which may have subtropicals such as bromeliads mounted on fences or trees. I've learned that the misters should never be mounted on the top of branches, but always on the bottom of a horizontal branch, to make it more difficult for the squirrels to do damage.

tropical I do not like SF Fog even though it is supposed to be good for coastal areas just didn't like flavor or production As far as 'early girl' if I were going to get a hybrid (haven't grown many in years) like 'early girl' I would probably get 'better boy' because it is a little larger,almost as early, I liked the flavor better and more productive - but it has been many years since I grew them - I like Box Car Willie much better and it produces like a hybrid for me You say 3 miles from the coast but is it So Cal, Central or Northern? How many can you plant? Do you like all zizes and shapes ie cherry/grape, heart, salad, beefsteak, round or oblate, plum ruffled etc etc what do you want them for fresh eating, cooking sauces etc what is your taste - do you like sweet or bold tomatoey but being new to tomato growing you probably don't know acid from balanced from sweet? - that's a good reason next summer to hunt out a tomato tasting to get names of maters you like and then see if they would fit into your gardening plan want a variety of colors? Many of those listed are pretty good and there is some variety - noted a couple opinions Black Krim (or any of the other black/purple tomatoes) - love this tomato Matina and Stupice fill the same niche and I think Matina is better choice Like geeboss said check out some sites like heirloomseeds I have not had good luck with them heirloom acres victoryseeds tatianastomatobase lots to look at here - really good site and lots of choices and info to digest Find someone in your area and talk with people who have tried different ones you are interested in By the way welocme to the tomato world Dennis

So many tropical do well in SF,it is more what does not do well. Cold winter rain will also kill some tropicals even without any frost, but most sturdy tropicals will do well. Jacaranda is a nice tropical tree that does well in SF, but look around, most of the street trees are tropicals. Flame eucalyptus, Victoria Box, Indian laurel (Ficus indica) and Acacias are tropical trees used as street trees in the city. Palms come in two basic types, fan and feather. Fan palms are hardier in general and you can grow many many types. (Chuson, Windmill, California, Mexican, Mediteranian, Palmeto, Chilian Wine, to name a few), Feather palms (like Coconut Palm)are more cold sensitive. Two basic types do well in SF. Date palms (5 or 6 species)and Queen palms. A few other feather types will grow in SF, but are rarer, blue palm and jelly palm come to mind. In really protected areas you can grow Raphis, Kentia and bamboo palms but they are all relatively small scale plants. The big palms on Dolores and up Market are Date Palms. Mexican Fan Palms are the most common fan types and are seen everywhere in CA. They are cheap and fast growing. Most other fan palms are slow growers Just about any type of banana will grow in SF, but won't produce fruit. My fave is the red or Abasynian banana. As well as bananas, also think about giant bird of paradise and giant taro or elephant's ear. The only problem with these plants is that wind will shred the leaves. When they get big enough giant philodendron and monstera have arial roots. I live in Sacramento and can grow 90% of what you can grow. I have mexican fan, queen, windmill and pigmy date palm, bananas and giant bird of paradise. I also have some philodenron with arial roots. The low humidity is the most limiting factor. Most of the tropical trees I mentioned don't grow here because of it, but oleander and gardinia do great here and we can grow plants like crepe myrtles without too much fear of mildew, which is a big problem in the Bay Area. I guess it is a trade off. Happy planning