Sundevil, if you are within 10 minutes of downtown Seattle, then you are either WELL within USDA z8b (and possibly technically 9), or you drive too fast!! (friendly laugh) As for the main point of this thread, the usual rule of thumb is to add FIFTY PERCENT to the DTM ratings, to compensate for our cool summers. Anything rated 90 days or more is a longshot although they can be done in normal years with a little TLC. 70-80 are usually decent ranges for sweet, full-flavored late tomatoes, although this year everybody I know says they're just not ripening. Matina and what I think is Gardner's Delight (accident with the labels) are doing OK for me and have been ripening tomatoes for about a month now. It will be nip and tuck for most others but I think they'll be OK. Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red and Earl of Edgecomb should be ripening within a few weeks. Pineapple is probably a lost cause at this point. I'm not sure it even has a single significant fruit yet. It is a very delicious tomato, quite sweet and "fruity" (as are several of the "German Bicolor" types), my wife's favorite (she told me to grow nothing but that), and it makes beautiful slices and dices with its multicolored fruits (I got red, yellow, and quite a bit of green even dead-ripe) and I've gotten them other years, but it is always a risk with its long DTM. Oddly enough tho, "Ananas Noire", which I think is an accidental cross of Pineapple (ananas = pineapple) and one of the "black" tomatoes (noire = black), is doing just fine. Not ripe yet but big fruits and they seem like they should be able to ripen one way or another. When I first grew tomatoes here we had lots of them in December. Early and late blight hadn't hit that particular part of the Puget Sound yet, and killing frosts are often that late. Now with the blights, not to mention an increasingly destabilized climate, we need to get the tomatoes in earlier. My strategy is to grow lots of short-season and cherry tomatoes, and only a relative few of the big, long-season, late tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes aren't always early, but they are usually easy to ripen. I love "beefsteak" type tomatoes (for sandwiches...or sometimes just eating slices straight), but they are ALWAYS risky in our climate. Even when we have a decent summer, all we need is one big summer cloudburst, and a lot of the beefsteaks, which tend to have thin skin and tender flesh, swell up and turn watery, or worse, split There seem to be some exceptions, but in general, smaller tomatoes are safer from too much summer rain or for that matter not being able to ripen. Sunset Magazine recently suggested covering tomatoes with plastic sheets to keep the rain off them, to avoid blight. I haven't tried it yet but it's worth a shot. I will have to try it soon as the rain is already here, and the days are cool and autumnal. I will try to give it a go and report back the results. Personally, Steve Solomon's books and ideas are too colored with Marxism (for those who are not aware he is a Messiahnic Communist) to have any use for me. He would denounce most of you for your decadent bourgeois elitism for growing heirloom or open-pollinated tomatoes instead of more productive F1 hybrids to make for central committee's glorious 5-year productivity miracle, and that was a typical kind of value judgment that underlies a lot of his assumptions without being explicitly stated (I assume he didn't want to scare his publisher). Yes I am aware that he speaks of personal sovereignty today and yet he still has plugs for the wisdom of Karl Marx right on his personal sovereignty page.

On the Fungicide: It is just a preventive measure for foliage diseases that can affect both hybrids and OP/Heirlooms. I use it regularly , one every week to 1o days, depending on the weather. I use mostly Daconil. It comes under different brand names.Plus some kind of copper fungicide. I also use Neem Oil spray. This one can be effective on some pests like aphids and it is organic. So i rotate between those three. Later in the season that it gets wet and rains more, I also spray with chlorine ( 7oz Clorox per gallon of water) to fight gray Mold. With all these fungicides I try to prevent the disease as much as possible. Fighting them when infested is often is a lost cause. Do a search on "Fungicide" here in Growing Tomatoes " forum. You should find many interesting discussions. Sey

Hello Desertgarden I remember before you going thru the same dilemma. You and Jasminerose4u or somebody kept talking about it. It sounds like you are trying to talk yourself into moving. I remember back then I wasn't going to answer anymore but alas, here I am. I think moving in order to have a job must be a lot easier than just deciding where to live. I think I would move with others to Santa Barbara:) Anyhow, I have lived here for over 50 years and was born 100 miles from here and have a sister that lives in Boulder City, NV and works in Vegas. I go every year and have for many years I would not have to give her advice to move here because she would never do it. It's more like a great place to visit but wouldn't want to live there with her, even tho' every year she complains about her summers from H*ll. She's been there over 40 years. Every place has their own set of problems. Too hot, too cold, too rainy, etc. etc. etc. She freezes here and I tell her to put more clothes on. DUH!!! First of all, I would worry about you more than your roses. Roses grow almost all over the world. Look how many members around the world this forum has. Every rose we grow is just an experiment anyhow. I see you got some good answers on your rose concerns. I will try to give my answer to some of your other concerns. 1. Zone 8 is just not cold for most roses, including tea roses, but I know that Sun, and Summer heat to an extent, is something most seem to enjoy I am zone 8A. The zone map says Min 10 to 15 degrees. Rare but not unheard of. I am in the urban area so warmer than suburbs. Mom used to say this was the banana belt. I've never lost a rose to the cold, doesn't mean it couldn't happen. And if it did, just a reason to try something new. Not the end of the world. 2. Seattle receives less rain than the U.S. average.. definitely less than many states in the middle of the country but likely with more cloud cover, and I know that there is a time where the city skews towards dry and sunny. Don't move here if you can't handle the gray. We may not get a lot of rain but we can make it last month after month after month. I find it cozy but it would drive my sisters crazy. Some people move here and love it. July and August and some Septembers are usually our dry months. https://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/cloudiest-cities.php But man, it is gorgeous on a sunny day. It was 96 degrees today and broke a record from forever. Most of us do not have a/c. Back to the 70's tomorrow. 3. I recently visited the Woodlands Zoo Rose Garden ( an ARS test garden). A few roses had blackspot (Bolero was the worst), however, some had missing leaves, so I am assuming that was due to blackspot. The vast majority of roses appeared extremely healthy in this organic garden. Woodland Park Rose Garden is 3.5 miles from me. I don't worry about blackspot so much as Powdery Mildew. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Even the new landscaping we just had put in has it. Hey, but we don't get as many weird bugs as other places. LOL! 4. Portland - the city of roses???, also known for beautiful roses 143 miles SOUTH of Seattle. Different city, hotter, colder.....not the same city. 5. Most of the roses were modern hybrid tea roses, rugosa, floribunda with Austin's here and there. At the Woodland Park Rose Garden? It's a test garden. Or maybe they found those grow well. It gets a lot of tourists and a lot of weddings. 6. Sheilah's PNW, Oregon/Rogue Valley garden is breathtakingly beautiful, filled with healthy plants including Tea roses. Rogue and Heirloom are both in Oregon)..???? Rogue River, OR is approx 425 miles SOUTH of here. Completely different climate than Seattle. Sheila is probably near there and I think her garden looks lovely and she puts a lot of work to make it look that way. Thanks Sheila:) I love South Western Oregon and would move there if I didn't move to Santa Barbara. HA! 7. Beautiful, healthy roses could be seen in every neighborhood/area we visited. Was my visit to the PNW at the prime time and not indicative of the norm? June and July are prime for roses. I would say my roses are good, some May, mainly June and July and start to slow down August and September they are gone. Or at least not that good. That's it! Seems like a pretty short season. 8. The Rhododendrons were magnificent. Are they a problem to grow also? Rhodies are tall as a lot of houses here. I don't have any but see them everywhere in the Spring so I don't think they can be too hard to grow. Probably just need the correct soil. I would be more concerned about: gray days, traffic, home prices, Seattle freeze (with so many newcomers not as strong), the convergence zone if you are a little north of the city (it is real) and other things. Every year you seem to have so much angst and I wish I could help you to just go with the flow and enjoy life and roses. If I had to move to Las Vegas I would probably feel angst too. A big change. My sister was telling me how beautiful her neighbors roses were this year in Boulder City. Seattle is a small city. With your husband being a tech executive he should be able to get a good paying job. In the future when your children have children it will be more important to be a grandma and to be near your parents. Enjoy your children while you have them. They'll be gone in a blink. http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-is-a-world-class-city-for-traffic-congestion/ http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-again-nations-fastest-growing-big-city-population-exceeds-700000/ http://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/newcomers-talk-about-the-seattle-freeze/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/more-records-fall-median-home-price-hits-722000-in-seattle-and-880000-on-eastside/ A lot better than California https://www.zillow.com/nv/home-values/ Las Vegas median home values PS: Have you ever driven from Seattle to Vegas? When you do you will realize it is a different planet;) You don't get that same feeling in a two hour flight. Good Luck!

I know there are lots of commercial berry fields in western WA - Whatcom, Skagit, Thurston and eastern Pierce Counties (and probably some others), all have large berry crops - granted, shrinking because of development, but still providing lots of fruit for the region. And WA is the leading blueberry producer in the country, most of them grown in Western WA. So it's incorrect to believe this couldn't greatly affect the berry crop here. How much it will remains to be seen. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/oct/16/farmers-go-into-the-blue/ Article about blueberries, but this was also from the same site (re: 2107): "Raspberries – There were 76,751,000 pounds of red raspberries grown in Washington last year, according to the Lynden-based Washington Red Raspberry Commission, which tracks red raspberries grown on the West Side of the state. Executive Director Henry Bierlink said he’s aware of a few red raspberry farms in Eastern Washington, “but the volume is not significant.” Strawberries – There were 7,314,716 pounds of strawberries grown in Washington last year, according to the Washington Strawberry Commission, which is in the process of disbanding. In April, when it had four vacancies on its eight-member board, the commission asked the state Department of Agriculture for termination. During the last 15 years, the number of strawberry acres has dropped by half, from about 1,800 acres to about 900 acres. Of its 35 growers, two are in Eastern Washington, according to part-time manager Walter Swenson. The main one of those two is in Walla Walla."