Tonio: I use that one also, but the other is a lot more microclimate specific with the map. Phil: That's a good general rule. By the way, notice the different dates for seeds or PLANTS for all the brassicas. What's kind of bogus is if you want to go down to Home Depot and pick up some fall/winter seedlings, they won't carry them until xmas or so -- not really a good time to stick a small seedling in the ground with the lack of sunlight, but Armstrong starts carrying them in late August. Yep. I grow quite a bit. Broccoli, Cauli, Bok Choy, Collards, kale, Leeks, Red Onions, Napa(first time this year -- planted seedlings in Dec -- produced real well, though for the longest time, I didn't think they were going to head; Snow Peas were awesome this year -- started in early November; Spinach, Leaf Lettuces, Swiss chard. What I've noticed is most of the Brassicas like to be planted early on in the fall or the mid-late winter -- once again, because of the lack of sunlight. Bok Choy's a hit or miss thing with me though -- I either get some decent plants or the heat or cold(what I've read recently) causes them to bolt. Potatoes -- I tried some reds one year and got some small ones, but since then I've found out that they like a pretty acidic soil and we're a bit on the basic side here in the west. So, before i try again, I'll have to add some sulfur to bring the ph down some. That... and the fact that I'm somewhat of a chile fanatic and since they're both in the nightshade family, it doesn't lend itself to crop rotation very easily. Nancy: Sometimes, just SOME TIMES, I wish I was more North for certain crops. Kevin

I could be wrong but I think tomatoes are generally self pollinating and do not need flowere to atract bees. People often companion plant marigold to prevent nematode damage but this is not necessarily 50% efective. But I like the beauty of the cosmos with my tomatos and always plant basil with the tomatos. There ain't nothing like the smell of picking, rubing against both plants at the same time.

Hi Michelle, I'm thinking you're in the same zone as I am (La Jolla, coastal, Sunset 24, standard 10) and facing the same miseries -- the nasty June gloom of coastal marine inversions. We've had a great 7 days this last week-- whoo-hooo.... sunburn city and heaven for the coast after the coldest spring on record in 76 years. Boy was last week a blessing! But now the usual June gloom has arrived and the 5-7 day forcast is for clouds and afternoon clearing, which in my area means it will clear from 3 pm to 5 pm and then the fog will roll in again. Here's my take from the last year and a half...... Like your plants, mine are in containers, and really perked up over the last week with the heat -- in fact I have 3 tomatoes actually showing a red blush right now........ oooh wheee...... OK, now for the reality. The June gloom is here to stay. Not going to go away. Even though we had a perfectly awful spring (which last year was great and gave the 'maters a runnning start that didn't happen this year at all), June is looking normal: nasty. OK, doesn't matter. Your tomatoes will still ripen. You will get very little dropoff of blossom to tomato bud in the next month because the temps won't go very low at night with the inversion, however anything that looks like its going to ripen will take for bloody ever compared to our inland (2 miles....) neighbors. The fact that you are growing in containers will increase the heat levels (better ripening) but decrease the total fruit set and size of the fruits over what you'd get in optimum ground conditions. I got great crops last year, in spite of the June gloom, but they took a long time to ripen and seemed to sit there forever with a faint muddly blush (all container plants as I have no dirt to plant in between deck and pool concrete). The advice I was given and followed which seemed to work was to water generously until a "substantial" growth of fruit had set and then water verrrrry abstemiously -- just enough to keep the plants from seriously wilting (I cheated a bit and underplanted my big pots (25 gal, redwood pots, two tomato plants to a pot) with parsley and marigolds which show the wilt sooner than the tomatoes -- when they wilted, I watered). The fruits that I got (through July-- the June gloom extended here) were delicious, though 1/2 the size of the expected and 1/2 the production that I had assumed from having planted the same plants in Palo Alto for several years before. Forced me to recognize that Palo Alto provides the perfect environment for tomatoes. La Jolla does not. Period. Each plant (San Diego, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Momotaro) gave approximately 1-2 smallish but delicious fruits a day (as opposed to Palo Alto at 5 full-blown fruits a day during the same period), but that was sufficient for my sort of "daily use" in salads, etc. I never harvested enough (even in August) to have a decent freezer supply for winter. My best "all round" protection last year came from GreenLight Rose Guard. Helped with bugs, fungus, and general pestiness. I supplemented it with BT because I had a big mid-June problem with some kind of inchworm thing (never clearly identified, but BT nailed 'em). My biggest problem hit at the end of July when I was savagely hit with tomato psyllids (see my post/research in the tomato forum). It was a very bad thing and virtually wiped out my "second flush" . With container gardening in this coastal environment, staging your tomatoes is key to getting a long production period. The benefit from being out of the inland extremes is that you and I will harvest tomatoes through January and later-- if we stage the plantings right (make sure you get the last set in by the first week in Nov.). The two plants that I set in at the beginning of October gave me their last fruits and gave up the ghost in the first week of March... Regarding the psyllids. I have seen none so far, but by July (whether I've seen them or not) I will be netting every pot in a fine-guage fabric to avoid the wholesale destruction the dang things caused last year. Hope this helps!

Thanks everyone for the information. It looks like i'll just leave them be. @Guavalane I'm actually surprised at how well they are doing. I have 28 albion strawberry plants. Each in a 6in x 6in x 6in container. I have them in a pretty fast draining soil, and water them daily during the heat waves and every other day when its cooler. This is my first year growing strawberries but they are doing very well. Some have 3-4 crowns from the initial single bare root crown I planted in March. They are definitely still producing. I would say I have gathered about 4 baskets of strawberries so far. With many more to come. Each plant has atleast 1 flower stalk with 3-7 berries, and a hand full have 2 flower stalks.