Hi, I have been gardening in the Boise area for about 8 years now. It's actually not too difficult of a climate to garden in, so long as you have access to irrigation water. Another thing that you might want to think about is protection from wind, If you're in a suburban back yard, it is not as much of an issue, but if your garden is more exposed, the wind can be pretty tough on plants. The sun can also be pretty intense, so where you may have wanted to maximize sun/heat on the "wet side" of Oregon, that's not always the case over here. For instance, I established a garden on the south side of the house this spring, and while the eggplants, sweet potatoes and okra are all thriving, it is proving to be too much for the hops, and they are getting kind of bleached and singed from the intense sun and heat. There is very little that can't be grown in this climate though. Artichokes are the only thing that comes to mind (and citrus of course) that I haven't been successful with.

Welcome to the Iowa Forum. Many of the answers you seek have already been discussed on this forum and are available through the "search" function found at the top of the title page. Of course, I also encourage additional postings as well. However, if you want immediate results, "search" is the way to go. Notice of regional and local events is one of this forum's best assets. Every year we make a point of posting local garden walks and other special events. I think you will find plenty of things to do and see. IronBelly

Diane, When I read all the hydrologic outlooks yesterday (from the Tulsa, Norman, Amarillo and Ft. Worth offices), I was sort of surprised that they aren't anticipating more long-term flooding. I did notice though that they emphasized that the predictions relate more to long-term versus short-term flooding and do not reflect any flash flooding since it cannot be predicted far in advance. Some things just can't be predicted.....no one predicted our 12.84" of rain that would fall in one day last April and no one predicted the resultant flooding that lasted for weeks and weeks. Honestly, though, if they had said we were going to get a foot of rain, who would have believed them? "In my bones" or via my intuition or maybe because of all the water I see standing in pastures and yards and ponds, etc., I feel like we'll have quite a bit of flooding here in southern OK. El Nino always brings us flooding and I think the rains will continue to be above-average and so will the flooding. We'll see how the hydrologic outlook changes as it updates over the spring months. LOL What do you think you'll see there? Think y'all will have a lot of high water this spring and/or summer? I remember in 2007 we were a little slow to realize a big flood season was coming, but by April we gardeners already knew it was on its way because we couldn't plant.....and in May or June much of our region was slammed by flooding. I have a feeling we could see that again this year. (I'd rather repeat 2004 when the flooding didn't come until June and July because at least we were able to plant more or less on time that year.) Dawn

Consider also the possibility of mounting remote control sun screens on the exterior for the days/times when the sun is too intense. I put one of these on my west facing window and am super happy with it. You can see through it, it still lets light into the room and raises and lowers easily with the remote from inside the house. It's quite long from top to bottom, so I was able to mount it high under the eaves so it's barely noticeable when up. Sunsetter shades