Alice, you may have said earlier and I have forgotten, but are you in the process of restoring and renovating a garden you installed years ago that got ahead of you as life made other demands?

Whether or not that is the case, sounds like you are doing a lot of hard work. I bet it will feel very satisfying after the bones and muscles stop hurting:>)

Not just your climate, but your ecosystem is so very different from mine, and I really enjoy reading about the work you are doing.

maeve, let me know if you get to a place where you are interested and able to do a bit of mail order of plants.

maeve and Alice, what USDA zone are you in? And to help me understand further what that means, in terms of plant growth and harvest time of things like tomatoes and snap beans, do you consider it to be mid or late spring, or early summer?

It is interesting to me to think about what it means for gardening in different places. Bobert is only about 5 hours north of me, but is at a much higher elevation. We are one zone apart. Normally he is a couple of weeks behind me, and as he has noted, is getting a late start this year because of wet weather. However, because he doesn't get the intense and long summer heat that we get here on the Piedmont, the delay doesn't mean he has missed his shot at most cool weather crops.

Maggie is significantly further south than am I, but we are closer in elevation, and both of us get intense summer heat. I'm in zone 7a, but most gardeners in this area agree that we are closer to zone 7b, and many plants that are classified as cold hardy to zone 8 can be grown here with just a little winter mulch protection. I have also grown perennials supposedly only hardy to zone 9 with heavy mulch protection. (of course, there is always the risk of a lengthy and really cold snap that will kill them off, even with protection, but we haven't had many intensely cold snaps in a number of years, and have not had a lengthy intensely cold period for 15 years. I remember that because the last one was the winter my son was born.)   

Maggie's season is a few weeks earlier than mine, but both of us are limited by long, hot summers in terms of both early and late season crops. However, she is far enough south that she gets more day length early spring and late fall, which has an effect on those early and late season cool weather crops. maeve, I think in Maine, you get significantly longer day length in summer than do Bobert, Maggie or I. Not sure about you Alice. I think you are much higher in elevation, but don't know how much further north you are.

I know we can all do succession planting, but heat and day length probably play nearly as big a role as last and first frost date. We may not have frost here until late October, but tomato production falls off sharply due to shorter days well before lower temperatures are a significant factor. I can sow kale or turnips in very late summer and get a small fall harvest, but most of the harvest from fall sowings will come the following spring. Because of late heat and high soil temperatures, it is very hard to get a fall crop of lettuce in before frost. I can get a small crop of baby salad greens, but even under cold frames, day length comes into play for successful fall and winter salad crops.