I think the advice you recieved from a CA member would be the most accurate. I have never grown in that situation. I do happen to have about 100 sf. raised bed garden. This is what I have planted. 10 tomatoes some cherry some large. Underneath the tomatoes I have onions, borage, basil and canteloupe growing. The canteloupe are planted in their own 'square' but I let the vines grow under the tomatoes and trim off the very bottom of the tomato plant to give them better air circulation. I also have trellised beside the tomatoes beans and a couple cucumbers. I have 3 eggplants, 3 goosberries, 3 green peppers and a few watermelon which grow under the eggplant and gooseberries the way the canteloupe do under the tomatoes. I have 12 collards, 20 strawberry plants, 20 sq. planted with corn. On the edges of the corn I have summer and winter squash. a small spot for sweet potato. On the edge of my main planter I have winter squash but I cheat there because I let them grow out over my grass which extends the 100 sq. Oh I also have a few radish under some of the tomatoes and such, by the time the tomatoes all get to be huge I'll harvest those and mulch the area. I practice square foot gardening combined with successive planting combined with intensive plantings. So far it has worked well except the carrots. They never got very big under my tomatoes last fall and from what I've read tomatoes actually inhibit carrots. Last year I did have a blight that spread through my tomatoes but they kept producing til the real heat hit. then I wiped the garden and replanted in the fall. I imagine Cal. is like florida you can do a spring and fall planting of tomatoes and such. I had tomatoes til Christmas. If you start your seeds in pots you can make that 100 sq. go even farther. I started my tomatoes while my carrots and turnips where still in the ground. I had 8 more weeks of growing while they got bigger. You can transplant a large portion of plants which means others can be growing while you are still waiting on germination. I'm starting Okra tonight so that when the corn is done the heat lover can take it's place. I'll also let the sweet potato roam more, it is right beside the corn so by the time the corn is done the sweet potato will appreciate more space. As the time gets closer I'll also pre-sprout some heat loving beans (maybe, I might just do those in place).

kerrican2001(z9b CA), nonaberrie(sf bay area), sandylighthouse(7), fruithack, teajm_yahoo_com Can you tell me more about fig trees? Ive never noticed them up here in the SF Bay as much as I did in Venice/Santa Monica in LA. Which varieties do well here? Do they grow tall? Can they be pruned so that they grow tall and stay narrow? I have a small front yard that is mandated to have a tree and I just cut down our existing one and am considering putting in a fig tree on both sides of the driveway. ( I started a separate thread in this subforum for it as well)

Sherry, Well, I think you can plant them and have limited success. Onions have to be in the ground and achieve a certain amount of growth before bulbing is induced. Since bulbing is induced by a combination of daylength and temperature, it is going to happen when the daylength-temperature combo is achieved, whether the onions have been in the ground for one week, one month, or whatever. So, that is why we have to plant onions so very early--to get maximum growth before initiation of the bulbing process begins. Most onions needs to be in the ground a minimum of 90 to 100 days before bulb initiation starts in order to size up fully, and some need 100 to 120 days. Short day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength (hours of sunlight) reaches about 10-12 hours in combination with the right temperature. Intermediate day-length onions need 12-14 hours days to bulb up. Long day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength is 14-16 hours and the temperature is right, which is why the long daylength onions are not grown in our part of the county. (Our daylength here maxes out around 14 hours.) So, if the onions go into the ground late, they will grow and they still will bulb up once bulb initiation occurs. They'll just be smaller when bulb initiation occurs, thus, they will be smaller at maturity than onions that were planted earlier. One reason that short day-length and intermediate day-length onions planted in the southern third of the country get bigger than those EXACT same varieties grown in the upper 2/3s of the country is that our weather allows us to plant the onions up to 5 months prior to bulb initiation, and the northern states' colder weather does not allow them to plant until approx. 75 days before bulb initiation. So, if you plant late this year, you'll get onions that are "northern-sized" instead of "southern-sized", but you'll still get onions! If you don't mind knowing you'll get smaller onions, go ahead and go for it. It would be a good learning experience if you've never grown onions before. Some commonly-sold short day-length onions are TX 1015Y (aka Texas Sweet or Texas Supersweet), Yellow Granex, White Bermuda, Southern Belle Red and Contessa. Some commonly-sold intermediate day-length onions are Candy, Stockton Sweet Red and Superstar. Some commonly sold long day-length onions (and these should NOT be sold in our region) include Borrettana Cippolini, Red Torpedo Tropea, Ailsa Craig (there's also a tomato by this name), Copra, Big Daddy, Red Burgermaster, Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, Yellow Sweet Spanish and Ringmaster. I've already planted my main crop of onions, but I do continue planting onions in various spots around the garden as companion plants, and I will, probably through mid-to-late April. Of course, I don't care if those companion-planted onions bulb up or not. Sometimes I leave the companion plant onions in the ground until the following year, and let them bloom in the spring. Their tiny flowers attract a TON of tiny pollinators and beneficial insects, and are quite attractive as well. Dawn

Rich Dufresne could probably give better advice. If I were in your situation, I'd be tempted to try planting them in a mound of sand/gravel/rock, maybe mixed with some compost. I'd have it in a sunny location. Winter rain, or lack thereof, isn't the issue. It's summer rain, humidity and steamy nights that do them in. Where these species grow naturally, summers are dry, and summer nights are mild or cool (i.e., sometimes you might want to wear a sweater). Except for S. spathacea, they'll probably take your winter temps. However, looking at an old climate summary, I see that Austin has had temps down to 15F, which is really pushing the envelope with S. clevelandii and S. spathacea. OTOH, S. apiana grows up to 5000 ft on Palomar Mtn, and they get regular winter snow up there and temps in the teens. S. spathacea grows in richer soils under live oaks -- or so I understand, as I haven't yet seen it in nature. It doesn't grow in my area. At Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (Claremont, CA), they have it growing in partial to nearly full shade (two large patches of it). One patch is under a native coast live oak (Q. agrifolia). My S. spathacea are in partial shade, but one of them gets too much sun when the sun is furthest north, and it gets scorched and doesn't recover until late fall. The good news is, you can easily divide it and try the pups in other locations. S. columbariae is an annual. It likes well-drained, gravelly soils and full sun -- you can't give it too much. Get seeds from Theodore Payne Foundation. In Calif., I'd sow it in the fall, Nov or Dec. Check the Las Pilitas website for info on all of these and suggestions for cultivars. Most S. clevelandii sold by nurseries are hybrids, though not always labeled as such. Cuttings get passed from nursery to nursery, but most growers have never seen it in nature, and they don't know what it really looks like. Of pure S. clevelandii, "Winnifred Gilman" is very popular. Hybrids like "Allen Chickering" and "Pozo Blue" grow much bigger, bloom earlier and longer, and *may* tolerate colder temps. Las Pilitas introduced "Pozo Blue," and theirs have endured temps to 10F at LP's Santa Margarita site (central Calif., inland from the coast).