Best places in the USA for a small family garden? (house, employment)

[amcc9106]

My husband wants to move to Colorado, but I've read it is mostly dry. We live in Georgia, it's a great place to garden, but we want to move elsewhere. We also have two small children. Where is a great state to move to?

[otterprods]

Originally Posted by amcc9106

Where is a great state to move to?

Puerto Rico.

[sunsprit]

While gardening can take place in Colorado with varying degrees of success in the short growing season ...

the real key to "best gardening" may be in a place with abundant natural water, good soils, and a significantly longer growing season than the high altitude deserts of Colorado.

If that's your primary priority, I'd be looking at the lower elevation riparian states. Almost any state east of the Mississippi and in the mid-country to southern areas would yield a far more productive garden.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by amcc9106

My husband wants to move to Colorado, but I've read it is mostly dry. We live in Georgia, it's a great place to garden, but
we want to move elsewhere. We also have two small children.
Where is a great state to move to?

Growing?
It's dry, you need to amend the soils, and have a short growing season if outdoors...must
start things indoors early....or have a green house in some way.
Perennials elsewhere are not, here.

At least go where there is black, rich soil!
The Midwest (it's not called the Heartland for nothing!), NY, Iowa area,
South Minnesota, Calif, yes, and East of the Miss river,
the Carolinas, Virginia...sea level at least.
Stay away from the SW, imo

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Why does your husband want to move to Colorado, i.e., what attracts him there? If he wants to move west, keep going all the way to the coast. I'd check out Oregon, especially places like Corvallis or Eugene. There's a reason the pioneers were attracted to the Wilamette Valley. It's a great place for growing crops!

[Mike from back east]

Lush growing in some areas of Oregon and Washington that get abundant rain, but depends on location within those states.

If I wanted to be a serious gardener I'd head to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a lush green area that will amaze you.

One can garden in COLO but access to legal water can be a deal breaker and must be carefully checked for any rural area. Utility water in Colorado is getting more expensive as there's a long history of arcane water laws here in the western states like CO, UT, NM, AZ, NV, CA.

Gardening is best done where you now live, in the south which has a long season, more water and few hail storms to wreck the crops like we have here.

IMO by thinking of COLO you've picked one of the more rigorous states in which to garden, though we do have threads on that in the Denver and Colorado Springs forum; find them with our search tool....

[amcc9106]

What about SC?

[crtyrdjester]

I live outside Seattle- pretty hard to garden here, too wet and the slugs that are the size of a deck of cards eat everything!!

[vfrpilot]

Originally Posted by amcc9106

My husband wants to move to Colorado, but I've read it is mostly dry. We live in Georgia, it's a great place to garden, but we want to move elsewhere. We also have two small children. Where is a great state to move to?

People have gardens in every state. Some require more work than others. I think CO would fall into the more work category. But we live at 7500'. I'm sure Pueblo, Canon City, and Florence would have longer growing seasons than cities like Colorado Springs or Denver.
I think you are gonna have to list more requirements than having a small garden. With no budget or employment restrictions, a nice little ranch on the island of Kaui would provide great conditions for a small garden

[oldtrader]

For many years, we lived in the Loveland-Ft Collins area. We had a 35ft by 75ft, garden area. My wife had a beautiful vegetable garden, growing all normal vegetables each year. She loved it.

Hint: Before I planted her first garden, talked to a good horticulturist. He told me do not plant, until Memorial Day Weekend. Plant earlier, and lose plants or have them stunted. We planted Memorial Day Weekend. A neighbor had a smaller garden and kept showing her guests how dumb we were to plant so late, as her garden had a months more growth than ours would. In less than a month, our plants were twice as nice as hers, due to hers being set back in their first month. We had heavy production. The same with other neighbors with gardens. Our garden started to produce as early as any of the rest, with heavier production. It boomed at the start while the neighbors had their gardens set back that first month, and took them a while to get back to growing like ours did from the start. The next door neighbors put out new tomato plants 3 times when the weather appeared to warm up, to have them killed. Ours grew at a tremendous rate right from the start. The next year, we all planted Memorial Day Weekend, and all had great gardens. Just because the weather turns warm for a few day in mid April to Memorial Day, does not mean time to plant your home garden in Colorado. You can plant early if you like, and you may replant it a couple of more times if you do.

If you move to Colorado, you can grow a great home garden, if you live the right places. Those are along the front range, and east. Or over in Grand Junction area of Colorado, where the big fruit production for the state happens. Excellent for gardens. Move to the mountain areas, and you will not have much luck if any at all growing a home garden.