Comments on: I Want To Live On The Coast In Or Near A Large City. Where Is The Best Place For Gardening?

By: Trisha s

Trisha s — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:07:50 +0000

San Luis Obispo County in California.

By: True Brit

True Brit — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:26:29 +0000

Personally I found that when living on the coast, the biggest problem was the salty winds. Your best bet is to look at your neighbour’s gardens and see what they grow.

By: paleorth

paleorth — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:48:52 +0000

San Luis Obispo makes good sense to me too. It is far enough south to have great sunshine, municiple water supply is more in balance with demand than further south, the fog gets a little thick at times, but the soils are top notch. Many of the soils are young, but not too sandy. There is even a deep loessal soil mapped in the area, a very surprising feature on the west US coast. Insect pressure is limited. The usual stuff: Colorado potato beetle and tomato hornworm. If SLO is not a big enough big city, move south from there. The soils may not be quite as ideal, but you should be able to find some good balance between water supply, smog, fog, soil and city life. San Diego would be next on my list. After that the coastal plain of the east Gulf coast seems promising, Mobile or Tallahassee. Growing season rain is a neat feature, but insect pest pressure goes way up.

By: mamapig_

mamapig_ — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:56:09 +0000

I think the most beautiful garden I have seen is on the Oregon coast. They have a garden there that I visit every year. The name is Shore Acres State Park (look it up). Everywhere you go things are growing wild and wild plants don’t have pest control. I imagine the soil must be good all along the coast because everything grows so well.