Spidra's Berkeley Microclimate Successes garden

I’ve created this listing to let other area gardeners know what works in my microclimate in Berkeley. I have clay soil. While there are some days that can be hot, in general things are windy and cool where I live. Especially windy. I live about 1 1/2 miles from the San Francisco Bay. The fact that I live on a major thoroughfare that doesn’t have street trees probably increases the amount of wind that whips through here. It’s a perfect climate for slugs and snails. It’s good for cool season crops most of the year but doesn’t get enough chill hours for many temperate fruits, particularly cherries and apricots. But it doesn’t get warm enough to grow sub-tropical and tropical fruits without a greenhouse. Nor does it get warm enough to coax maximum sweetness out of a peach.

October is often the hottest month, which took some getting used to when I moved here from LA. If you averaged our temps out over the year, I’d say we are in the mid-60s most of the time. We get frost maybe 10 times a year (which is more than we used to). The hottest days are in the 90s. 100 is rare.