The Inland Northwest vs. The San Joaquin Valley

Comparisons are inevitable. In basketball, it's Kobe vs. LeBron. Football - Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady. Gonzaga vs. Wazzou. Marsha Brady vs. Laurie Partridge.

(huh?)

As far as gardening is concerned, how do I compare my current home (Newman Lake) with my old one (Fresno)?

What I miss about Fresno:

1) The early Spring - February (Believe it! On some occasions, plum trees would be blooming in January! One year I kept a journal, and I was picking tomatoes at the end of May! Up here, I'm lucky to plant my tomatoes by the end of May!)

2) The hot summers that really kick the squash, peppers, and melons (Last year in Newman Lake, I grew - well, tried to grow - cantaloupe and watermelon. I ended up with tennis-ball sized melons!)

3) The Fall (Sometimes, Fresno gets an Indian Summer where October doesn't turn cool until late and stays in the 80's and even the 90's. Gardens keep on producing.)

What I don't miss about Fresno:

1) The air (whoops, not a gardening topic! Let's try again.)

1) Hardpan (I don't miss the feeling of the shovel head stopping like it hit concrete 6" below the surface. I don't miss the barren alkali soil that can't grow anything but scrub brush, either).

2) White flies (I almost forgot about them. They are little moths that are smaller than mosquitos, but are everywhere. They coat everything with a sticky goo that is awful, and actually causes millions of $$$ of damage to the cash crops. If a hard freeze doesn't hit, they live happily through Winter, too.)

3) Regular flies (I hate flies. In October, in Fresno, when the weather starts to change, the flies start congregating all over the houses, literally walking vertically and upside-down on the walls and eaves, and not flying. It's like they know Armageddon is coming. Ugh.)

4) The lack of winter (Because there isn't a hard, lengthy freeze, the bugs never go away. And, it just gets foggy. Snow can be fun. Fog is not.)

What I like about Newman Lake

1) The Summers (This is cool crop paradise - lettuce and other leafy greens thrive here. And, it is pleasant to work in the garden when it's not 100 outside.)

2) The soil (The sandy soil is easy to work with - once you get the rocks out! - and you can build it up with amendments. No comparison to the dreaded hardpan.)

3) The Summers, part II (It gets light at 4am, and doesn't get dark until 9:30 - plenty of time to work on the garden.)

4) It Rains! (Yes, it rains up here, giving you a reprieve from watering. It almost never rains in Fresno.)

What I don't like about Newman Lake

1) The short growing season (Unless you are greenhouse-equipped, you won't pick a tomato or a pepper until late-July or August)

2) The lack of flies (Kidding!)

In terms of straight miles, Spokane is about 760 miles from Fresno - it is driveable in a day. But in terms of gardening, it is amazing the effect this distance has. I wonder what kind of growing season they have in Hay River in the Northwest Territories (due North of Spokane by about 920 miles)? By comparison, Lancaster is about 900 miles due South of Spokane, and not much different climate wise from Fresno.

Maybe Newman Lake has a lengthy growing season after all...