I eat a fair number of loquats from trees in 25 gallon pots. Loquats will stand a pretty light soil (lots of perlite) so the pots are not to difficult to drag around.

Hi - I am in 6b and grow nearly year 'round now (whatever I can get away with!). You should start (now) planting things in trays to be placed in the beds when the tomatoes etc. are done. Suggestions would be chard, cress, broccoli, and lettuces of all varieties. You can be succession-planting your lettuces in small patches all Summer and into the Fall. Smoosh it in anywhere you have a small spot. Carrots can be planted BENEATH the tomatoes right now. Add more carrot seeds every 2 weeks in a different spot. Make it easy on yourself and do just 12 carrots under each tomato plant. Then when the tomato is dead snip it off at the soil line, do not yank up the root and disturb your carrots. Ditto beets, turnips and mustard. The mustard can be started in trays now if you wish, and do another batch in a month - it likes to mature in the cool weather. Turnips must get planted directly - again, find a small spot somewhere. All of the root veggies will keep nicely in the ground for gradual harvesting even after several frosts - cold improves the flavor. And don't forget radishes which only take 30 days to a harvest. Arugula is another great crop that loves very cool temperatures and you will be eating it 3 weeks after you plant - it comes up practically overnight. Start some "corn salad" also known as "mache" at the end of August and transplant when you have a spot ready. This produces smallish rosettes of elegant salad greens and it will re-sprout in the Spring. Don't forget spinach - start some in trays end of August and you should get a nice harvest by frost - also if you do not yank the root out the Bloomsdale variety will re-sprout in Spring too - so you get double duty. There's a lot more but this is just off my head at the moment. You will basically need to commit to starting seeds in July/August if you want to be ready with small transplants once those spaces are available.

I didn't start out to grow so much, it just kind of happened. I was also a military wife and planted small gardens and flower beds in a lot of different climates as we moved from place to place. When we finally retired, I wanted a garden, but we lived in southern Oklahoma at the time and I had only red clay. Although I tried to improve it, I never got it the way I wanted it. When we moved to Grove, I cleared a corner of the back yard, which had once been a garden, but was then a lawn, and I planted a small garden. The soil was really good and it did well. The garden did so well, that I wanted it to be larger, then larger, then larger, until it now takes up the entire back yard. Some Springs we get a lot of rain, and in the beginning, I had such mud that I have had it pull my shoes off when I tried to walk in it. I sometimes had to rescue tomato plants that appeared to be swimming, by digging a trench to drain off the water. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of trees and many people burn their leaves. Some of them now know that they can just dump the leaves in my north yard. One guy has a huge lot and he just drives here on his lawn mower with his 4x4x4 grass catcher, and dumps them for me. He loves it because he doesn't have to burn them. I love it because he doesn't have to burn them. I not only hate the smoke, but they are great for my garden. I also buy mushroom compost by the pickup load, and I have chickens. Although I still get rain, I just don't have the mud problem that I once had. At first, I only grew what I thought we could eat fresh because that is what I had always done since I had small gardens and we moved so much. What I discovered was that there were so many great things to grow, that I wanted to grow them all. LOL I wanted the great taste of fresh produce, I wanted food that hadn't been sprayed with dangerous chemicals, and most of all I just wanted to learn how to grow as many things as I could. I think our economy stinks, and is going down hill each year, so I wanted to learn to be self-sufficient in the event I needed that skill. Although I plant mostly in the ground, I have 3 raised beds that I use for early crops. One now has asparagus so I can control the moisture level, and I normally plant salad crops in another so I'm not growing them in the Spring mud. This year the third bed is filled with the first onions I planted. I covered it with row cover as soon as I planted because we have a neighborhood cat that thinks any box is just for him. As far as costs go, I consider gardening a hobby, and a health benefit and a lot more exciting than a gym membership. As my gardening skills improved, my soil improved, and I practiced growing more things, I found myself with all of this food. I can't stand to see it wasted, so we freeze it, can it, and eat it. If I had more space, I would grow even more, because I like doing it. I could garden for less money than I spend, but I am no longer young and I have some health issues so I need to do things in the smartest way that I can. Like George, I buy Lee Valley tools. I have others as well, but it is the Lee Valley that I normally reach far. My daughter-in-law says that my shovel is so heavy, that you just hold it up and drop it instead of pushing it into the ground. LOL When I have big purchases to make, I just buy in quantity, but buy for several years. Once you have a hoop bender, then it is cheap to make all of the hoops that you need. One year, I bought 500 feet of row cover which I am still using. I can usually get several years use out of each piece. If it gets holes in it, it is still useful. It is good enough to use over the raised bed that the cat likes, or to lay over the tops of plants that are under a poly low tunnel if we get excessively cold weather, or even to wrap around the sides of a CRW tomato cage to keep sharp winds off small plants. One year I had pepper plants until after Thanksgiving by surrounding the bed with row cover and putting a piece of greenhouse plastic just over the top part of the plants. There was plenty of air flow, but it still provided protection from the harsh cold wind. I still have plenty of unused row cover to use for a few more years. Last year I bought greenhouse plastic that was 100 feet by 10 feet. It is perfect for use on low tunnels since conduit comes in ten foot lengths. With the conduit pushed into the ground, the ten foot poly works just great. I only needed about a third of that last year, and even that piece is still good enough to use again. I need to learn to grow more herbs. I am fine with basil, dill, cutting celery, parsley and things like that, but struggle with others. They may get too much moisture, but I'm working on building a new VERY raised bed to try again. If you saw the location of my garden, you would wonder how I can grow anything because I have trees and buildings all around. Oklahoma has such brutal summers that the shade seems to help, and the buildings seem to take winds mostly over my garden instead of whipping through at ground level, so I think that extends my Fall growing. Even in the same State, we have many different growing conditions and just like a flower that 'will bloom where it's planted', we have to take what we have available to us and make it work, and just 'bloom where we are planted'. Every year I learn more about my garden. Last year I lost a tree which made a difference, so I have to adjust for that. Everyone has waste, whether it is paper, cardboard, kitchen scraps, chicken pen cleanings, hay, etc. If you don't, your neighbors do. Just get creative and you can make your soil better for gardening. Spend money if you have it, and want to spend it on gardening, but even if you don't, you can still grow a few things and learn a lot....and most of all..have fun.

I think everything on your list has the potential to grow well here, although raspberries can be very particular about their soil and moisture and also about how much heat they'll tolerate. Other than the special pH needs of the blueberries which you already know about, everything on your list should grow just fine as long as it is planted into well-prepared soil at the proper time. In case you've never planted garlic before, it normally is planted in the fall here. Carrots are generally easy, but I believe I get a better-tasting crop in the fall than in the spring. Heat can adversely affect the flavor and texture of carrots, making them tough and bitter. In the spring, we often go from "too cold" to "insanely hot" so fast that sometimes the carrots have barely germinated and then suddenly the temperatures are warmer than the optimal temps for growing carrots. Also, carrots germinate very slowly in cold soil and very quickly in warm soil so it is a lot easier to start them in late summer than in mid-winter. I suspect Carol's carrot issues have to do with her soil staying so wet, but that's just a guess. With almost every squash, you'll have to fight squash vine borers and squash bugs with only a few exceptions and those are mostly winter squash. With cucumbers, they'll grow and produce very well as long as you can keep the cucumber beetles from giving them bacterial diseases that quickly kill them. There are many wonderful vining types in various sizes, shapes and colors. Not all cucumbers are green. Some years you'll get great yields from some fruits and veggies and other years you won't. It all evens out though.