Alameda is in the East Bay, but SF is not far away. In the East Bay, is the Berkeley Botanical Garden. In January it will be cool (upper 50's to low 60's. In San Francisco the Stribing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park (9th Ave. and Lincoln Way) is a must--great plants, many sub-tropical, and a beautiful garden. Nearby there are lots of great places to eat or have tea on 9th ave. Also in GG park is the history Conservatory Of Flowers--tropical plants as well as the 19th century architecture of the building itself. GG park itself is also worth driving around--so many neat little hidden meadows ponds and lakes. South of SF on the coast is Half Moon Bay. I am over there all the time. I like to visit Half Moon Bay Nursery--it has a nice greenhouse area of houseplants as well as another greenhouse full of succulents. A nice inexpensive seafood restaurant at the Marina is Ketch Joanne. HMB is very pretty with farms, huge commercial greenhouses and open space making for a good way to visit the Pacific Ocean. Downtown HMB is full of nice shops full of high end art and crafts. My housemate Charles has a shop next to a grove of gigantic rust metal dinosaurs. Our neighbor, who has the dinosaurs, has a great outdoor gardening sculpture and pottery business, but what would you do with a 300 lb fountain? He rarely sells the dinosaurs, because they are so huge; but they are a great stop for tourists with kids, and he just likes having them. He keeps adding more. People are always stopping to check them out and take pictures. Olive trees do well around here but there haven't been local commercial groves for many years. There may be some to the north near Sonoma, another very picturesque town with historic buildings and shops. Alicia might know. A junior college (Canada College) near me is built on land that once was an olive grove. There are many old trees, growing wild, up and down the hillside and in a seldom visited little canyon. I get olive seedlings coming up in my yard all the time as the birds drop the seeds. Jon

Frost damage here in my garden in the foothills above Santa Cruz consists of the following: - brugs at the bottom of the hill lost some of their leaves, but are still in full bloom. Interestingly, a fully exposed brug. sanguinea has zero frost damage, so it seems much hardier than the regular brugs. Brugs at the top of the hill were completely undamaged. - mountain papaya leaves got nipped back everywhere except where there was some overhead protection. - Very fresh growth on cherimoyas and white sapotes at the bottom of the hill got nipped back, not a trace of damage on the same varieties at the top of the hill. - All banana leaves got fried thanks to a sprinkler going off in the middle of the night, but ensete ventricosum is still green/red. Ensete ventricosum leaves appear to be a degree or two hardier than regular banana leaves. My Hawaiian apple banana was unphased by the cold, but it's growing in between two buildings. - Ti plants appear to be amazingly tough, not a trace of damage on any of them! Collacacias under canopy appear to be fine, exposed ones have light damage. - Cannas didn't get damaged, go figure that one out. - All palms, including king, parajubaea, kentia, basically the works have zero damage. - tropical guavas fine, even the fruit was undamaged. (Fruit ripens in April here) - Some citrus varieties in the lower garden had really tender fresh growth nipped back. - tropical low chill apple trees that are blooming now were unphased by the cold, fruit on my pink lady apple tree were not damaged either. Someone relayed back to me that their pink lady tree in Texas took 18F two weeks ago with fruit on the tree, and neither fruit nor leaves were even remotely phased by that cold temperature. All in all, it was a very strange freeze, seems most of the damage is a result of frost/ice crystal formation on plant tissue. It never got very cold here, it just stayed right at freezing or slightly below for a good 8 hours, with lots of humidity in the air, hence so much frost formed. Pockets of the yard with poor air drainage and full exposure to the night sky got colder than other spots. Now I am in favor of removing damaged tissue. The tissue is an entry point for pathogens and fungus. So I usually will cut off any rotten tissue as best I can.

I did the same as Jenn everyone that sells mulch near me has wrong sizes as well. I can get the greenall but have to drive 45mins to an hour lol. To me not worth the time. So I now settled on the earthgro. I screened my first batch last night. From a 2cf bag I lost less than half a 5 gal bucket worth to oversize bark. Doesn't seem to bad to me. There was a good amount of sapwood though maybe a qtr of bucket that I had to pick out so far but again worth the effort at $4 per 2cf vs 10$ + 3.85(gas per gal at 11mpg in my guzzler truck)+$5(bridge toll) for one bag of greenall. So that's easy math to me lol. I can get at least 5x as much earthgro bags. The only downside is picking out the sapwood. Even then I'll just watch for nitrogen issues after I get to lazy to pick it all out. lol. I still think it will be better than potting mix. I'm still go one do potting mix as well just for comparison since I have multiples of each type of pepper, so I know for next season. This post was edited by flipback23 on Thu, Mar 6, 14 at 11:03

If you have a car, then I would suggest you go to Draegers Grocery in San Mateo on 4th St. and have the most fun ever. Outrageously expensive but the best upscale grocer in the Bay Area. Since you've been to Spanish Table in other cities I wouldn't bother with the Berkeley location, it's pretty small although it is nearby the Cheese Board, which is a great cheese store run by a collective (very Berkeley). If you like seafood, then eat at Sea Salt on San Pablo & Dwight Way in Berkeley, an excellent place for lunch that is one of my favorites. If you do have your car when going to IKEA, then Townhouse Grill in Emeryville has an excellent burger and good salads, but Sea Salt is not that far north, just a few minutes, and is much better food. Their lobster roll is very tiny but absolutely choice and with a bowl of their excellent clam chowder (full of bacon and properly unthickened), my hands-down favorite lunch in the entire East Bay. Good wine list, excellent coffee, very laid-back at lunchtime. Weather in the Bay Area has cooled off and the fog is back, so bring that Polarfleece vest, especially for the Marina.