I got golden gate gardening by pam pierce, and it's not a bad book for the microclimate information, but I don't need to buy it now. It has a lot of you cannot do this and you cannot do that. For example being that IÂm in the fog zone, I cannot grow tomatoes or corn. When you have a problem like a blight she has a lot of can and can nots. I wish she offered more alternates to can situation with the pros and cons instead. I would rather Google the topic to get a number of different opinions, and then mull the situation over in my mind. It give me something to think about. I went to the Lnygso website and it's bad, they have a lot of stuff there, but they don't deliver. The "compost" in the photo looks like they kind they dye black, the color did not look natural. It's not a good as making a labor intense food scraps compost. I add star bucks coffee and osh redwood bark shredded, and it's the only compost I really need. They have seminars there. And there is a garden to view, but thatÂs not the kind of plants I like to grow, the lush ones, but Redwood city is quite a bit hotter than San Francisco in the summer. I still think Supersoil gave me good results when I used it in the past. It has sand, but the sand is a good type of grains of sand. The grains are not the kind of tiny grains that get all compact on you, like my sand which is bad sand, that hardens to a Caliche. When this happens the water wonÂt penetrate the soil, it just sits on top of the soil and evaporates. If you try to dig down you will see the plant roots are dry underneath. This encourages shallow rooting of plants. So, thatÂs good sand. Almost no one makes real compost anyway. Whole foods has some compost, but it was just some like pointed pieces of wood without any real deposed material. I would think with all the fruit they donÂt sell because itÂs priced too high, they could make a great compost. The other book on northern ca, has arrived and I have to pick it up an read it this weekend.

My suggestion is that you rent before jumping in to buy. It is very likely the housing sales will not pick up until 2009 and this will give you the chance to look around carefully to decide what works best for you. Unlike Juno we ended up in the Oakland hills. We find the traffic on the 580 freeway faster and less clogged than any other EBay freeway, an important consideration when it can take you over an hour to go 35 miles at peak commute times. We live in an older neighborhood where lots are large, crime is moderate (lots of 'casual crime' but virtually no 'heavy' crime) but the mailman can leave pkgs on my front porch at any hour and no one takes anything. OTOH, it will cost you between $450K-$500K to buy a 2- or 3-bdrm older cottage in any reasonable shape. Our lot is 5600 sq. ft. with a small cottage - 2bd 2 ba with attached 1 car garage: Many Bay Area cities are under mandatory water rationing. You will need to learn an entirely new way of gardening with a wider variety of plants than you are accustomed to. I second the suggestion of EBMUD's 'Dry Climate' book, it's one of the finest available for our area. The Sunset magazine and garden books are also essential info sources. Consider resale carefully here. Some stay here forever, some move around a lot. Buying the wrong location can really hurt when you realize your house would be worth $100K more if it was located 2 miles away. Or that it takes you so long to hassle with the daily commute, you hardly have any time to garden at all!

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

Here's my list in case you guys are interested. I will save the seeds. I thought I had a lot for Bay Area. Kellogg's Breakfast Beiju Aunt Gertie's Gold Green Giant Marianna's Peace Paul Robeson Cherokee Purple Orange Strawberry Caspian Pink Omar's Lebanese Big Zac Brandywine Pink Sungold Box Car Willie High Country Bull's Heart Aunt Ruby's German Green Anyone going to the fairfield tomato festival on august 16/17? It's a chance to taste some tomatoes to make sure I like it before trying to grow it.