Does it have to be in the USA? I have a friend who lives in Vancouver and it seems ideal for fruit production and general livability. There’s a few zones around there that are 8b (!) but in general it’s 6b-7b territory. However, the summers don’t get ungodly hot.
Vancouver Island itself ranges from temperate rainforest to temperate desert (depends which side of the mountains you’re on). Also some other good places up and down the British Columbia coast.
The landscape is gorgeous, the people are friendly. Of course, anywhere where the weather is good and the landscape is pretty is expensive. But maybe you’d be able to find something affordable on the coast? I don’t know.
Also, how about the more temperate areas of Michigan? Nice fertile, sandy soils. The lake can have a moderating effect so not as cold on the winter, not as hot in the summer. However, not sure what the real estate market is like there.
I wouldn’t pay much attention to the crime stat on the website I linked. They say there is a lot of crime, but as with any city, it matters where you live. The site ranks KCMO as 91 out of 100 (very high crime) but that’s a load of bull. They rank Chicago better than KC, which is more bull. Chicago is the most violent city in the nation. KC does have plenty of violent crime if you get close to the center, but if you get out a little bit it’s very low crime.
Also pay no attention to the negative reviews. Only people unhappy post reviews on that site. There isn’t that much prejudice as the reviews suggest. The reviews were posted mostly by religion haters. My daughter and her husband live in an all black neighborhood and there are some very friendly people there. People are people. If you are friendly and non-judgemental, most people will be friendly back, no matter where your at.
Haha, yes it is 31 right now and I am complaining bitterly!
Id say there are definitely positives and negatives about greenville, as there are with any place. Ive been told by lots of people that visit here (foreigners and fellow americans) that the people here are exceptionally nice. We have beautiful farmland here, and it is pretty cheap (compared to New England). Definitely landlord friendly, like Olpea said.
Culturally, it is different from New England but with the big influx of northerners, germans (bmw) and french (michelin, fleor daniel) it is becoming much less southern.
We also have fireblight aplenty, bugs aplenty, and pretty bad heat/humidity in the summer.
Satsumas and kumquats are do able in ground with protection on the coldest nights. Anything less hardy needs a greenhouse here.
I think it is a bit too cold here and would move a bit further south to augusta area if I had my druthers.
Like fruitnut said above, Arizona at about 4500 feet elevation is pretty good.
We are at 4400 feet, below Prescott, and can grow a lot. We only get Apricots every few years, but we’re cold enough for cherries, very dry and so practically no disease issues, and we are close enough to citrus in Phoenix that we don’t need to grow it. We go to Sun City every winter and get paid to pick barrels of it.
Colder climates will give you fruit more reliably, as here below the snow line, we warm up too fast, and then get those late frosts, but I kinda like the dry, relatively warm winters. It’s shirt sleeve weather here today, and my guys are out harvesting pecans.
Wherever you’re thinking about moving to, you may want to make a visit first before the move. My brother asked around, completed a survey and finally moved, only to find out he was miserable, then had to move again.
In response to the OP, we can’t grow citrus or cherries in SC, but
we can grow just about everything else. We have a great many
“yankees” that retire here, because we have great weather, people
are friendly and the cost of living is much lower than above the
mason dixon line. I live in Columbia and I’m 2 hours drive from
both the beach and the mountains. Where else can you say that?
So many good responses in this thread. I’ve spent a good chunk of time today looking at the data from the various suggestions.
Thanks Mark! That site was very useful, not just for climate info, but for other stats. I like the comfort index stat. I didn’t realize that I was slightly below average (51 vs 54), though a bit above KC’s 46.
From that comfort metric:
Hawaii- high 90’s
California- low to mid 80’s
Florida- ~80
Arizona- high 70’s, low 80’s
Oregon- mid-high 70’s
Texas- quite a range in the 60’s and 70’s
NC/SC/GA- 64-71
A lot of votes for Western OR/WA. From the stats, it looks like they get less sun than most places on the list- almost 2 months less than I have now and 4+ months less than CA/AZ. It does have a pretty good comfort score, but what is the main feature from a fruit growing perspective? A lack of late frosts?
Good advice- I’m still years away, but I’ll be sure to make some trips. I’ll may also start buying rental properties ahead of time as well, if the situation is right.
The late frosts would be a mark against- sounds like I’d want a greenhouse to protect some of the trees. Does Phoenix to the South of you get hit with them as well, or is the climate warm enough that the occasional dips to ~30F don’t hurt things?
Also, have you faced any issues from water restrictions? From what I’ve read, it seems like Arizona (and the whole west) is facing some water deficits.
31 is too cold for me too…And it reached about 16F as a high here today, with a low of 1F forecast for New Years eve.
Crime is definitely very local. Where I live is 11/13, while a few towns away, it is 85/46. I won’t touch any properties there, even though they are very good values from a cap-rate perspective. A near-by working class town is 32/30 and makes for good rentals. In the super-expensive towns, it usually isn’t possible to charge enough rent to justify the high cost of the property.
That’s a good point. My wife has brought up Thailand and Costa Rica as possibilities. And I liked Australia when we visited for out honeymoon. It is a bit harder to find the info for these places though. I had trouble even finding a zone/hardiness map for Thailand.
Another requirement which I didn’t even mention is the presence of good badminton facilities. In fact, that was why my wife visited Thailand. She brought the kids there for training last summer for almost a month.
I’m not sure how much I like extreme heat/humidity. I suspect that I wouldn’t be thrilled with Amazon rain forest levels, given the description a few co-workers gave me after they came back from vacation. But I don’t mind the 90-95 degree humid days we get here. Though I burn pretty easily, so I usually stay inside, or go out wearing long sleeves and a massive sombrero (function over form…).
I suppose I’d need to visit TX/AZ during the hot season to get a better sense of it.
Looking at the stats, Fredericksburg gets a bit more rain than Corpus Christi and gets a bit colder. Is the main benefit more chill hours? It’s a bit of a conflict, in that the trees need chill hours, while I don’t want any myself.
What is the best way to find out what areas have good soil? I thought that I’d read that fruit trees aren’t as dependent on rich fertile soil as other crops. Though I suppose that too much salt, alkaline, etc could be a problem for them.
Hey @BobVance if you don’t like chilling stay away from western OR and WA. Those winters are 4 months of constant clouds and rain with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. No place in the country gets more chilling. Honestly I’d take south Texas heat and humidity any time over those miserable winters. I got some of the winter rain when I lived near Fresno. But it’s 10F warmer in CA and it’s only cloudy half the time not 90%.
If you can take the heat and humidity move to Florida. Very little chilling and you can grow lots of things just different things than you grow now. Also no state income taxes and reasonable land/house cost. Don’t know about renting/landlord issues.
I just saw your spread sheet. Nice. Looks like you can sell out of CT and afford to buy numerous houses in FL.
I live near Augusta. It’s not a bad place, but I don’t think it has a lot to recommend it unless you have family or a job there.
First, the housing price is a bit off. Few people want to live in Richmond county (where Augusta is) and even though you’ll be able to find a house cheaply, there’s not a lot of land and/or places most people would like to live. Columbia county (right next to Augusta) is booming right now, and it’s where everyone wants to live, so finding a plot of land with acreage at a good price can be difficult. Conversely, if you live another county over, in McDuffie, Warren, Burke counties, you’ll be able to find a decent plot of land for very cheap, but those areas are very much the rural South, with all the good and bad that goes with it.
The heat and humidity here are such that you’ll have a tough time growing anything without synthetic fungicides. I tried tomatoes with Serenade and Neem. No chance. That doesn’t mean things won’t grow—they certainly do, and they grow very well. Its just if you grow susceptible crops, you need to spray early and often for diseases.
Also, in the summer, it’s nearly impossible to go outside in mid-day and expect to work in the garden. You’ll get sick. You have to slowly acclimate yourself, either by starting early in the morning and just sticking with it, or acclimate yourself somehow. The only good thing about the climate is in the winter it rarely gets below freezing for significant amounts of time So if you hate cold, that’s a plus.
I dunno…it sounds like I hate it here, which isn’t the truth. If someone was coming here for work, I’d tell them there’s pluses and minuses, but overall they should be fine. But I wouldn’t move here if I had an open choice of here vs. anywhere else in the US. Not sure it would be on my top 20. Maybe my top 50, around 40 or so. There’s just too many minuses with the climate, and for me personally, the rural south is a culture shock. Not that it’s bad, it’s just they have a way of doing things that isn’t how I’d like to do them and vice versa.
ETA: Looking at your whole list, out of the choices, I’d personally go with Charlotte area. A good enough climate you can still grow all the traditional fruit/veg crops, a beautiful area, access to the Charlotte metro. A bit cooler in the winter than you’d want, and probably a wee bit warmer in the summer, but nothing too extreme in either direction. That’s just my $.02 of course. Then again, I seem to have a lot of different criteria than many here-for example, there’d be no way I’d voluntarily move to Texas, Louisiana, or Florida. I like warm, but living in an armpit for 4+ months a year is not enough recompense for being able to grow my own citrus fruit.
I’m in San Diego and am 15 minutes from the beach and about 1.5 hours to an ok mountain w/ ski slopes. Many places in SoCal can also claim similar times.
Of course, we are very crowded, it’s super expensive, the traffic sucks, I had to put a lien on my first born to afford a mortgage for a house, and we do not get near enough rain. And the drivers around here are pretty darn rude.
Lots of different places, each with something going for it!
Where we live the ground water is plentiful, and unrestricted. It is definitely a good thing to consider though, as some places the water is very deep, and not so abundant. It is very important because you cannot count on rain here.
Maybe. I’d prefer something further South in FL, as I don’t think Orlando would be good for lychees (any frost and they die). But, after I had been working on the spreadsheet for a while, I realized that I could have saved myself some time by looking at where the major badminton facilities are and checking their climates. There is one in Orlando which I’ve been to, as we took a drive last winter down to a tournament (for the kids- I don’t do that many tournaments anymore) there. So, I know Orlando is a wife-approved destination. I think my first choice would still be Hawaii- year round growing season with plenty of rain, but not too high of humidity.
Aside from remoteness and not too many badminton facilities, the issue with Hawaii is cost of living. The figure from the site are a bit misleading. You would think that the COL would be going down from CT to HI (318 → 150%), but part of the COL calculation is housing. If you exclude housing, my current COL drops to maybe 125%, but the HI one doesn’t drop much, if any, and stays around 150%. The only way I see convincing my wife of HI is if I find a good business idea.
That doesn’t sound like fun and could be a risk in many of the locations. Maybe I should just agree to go to any old warm place my wife wants on the condition I can build a large greenhouse
I learned that when I went to Myrtle Beach years ago for a golf vacation. I went around the Labor Day holiday, and was not prepared for the heat and oppressive humidity. I went out in the mornings to hit a few balls at the driving range, and in about 15 minutes I was soaking wet, and I don’t sweat much.
It gets a little easier as the humidity burns off a bit during the day, but it was still rough. I learned real quick to start my rounds later in the afternoon. I thought how in the world do people live here in the summer?? I guess it’s what you get used to, but do you really ever?
The places I stayed at had their best rates of the year in late summer, and highest in early spring. Now I think I know why!
This is a hard one, places where one can grow Citrus and Stone Fruit outdoors in ground are going to be hard to find. At best it will be a compromise where you can grow low chill hour stone fruit, and cold hardy citrus. I live on the 8b/9a line in western Louisiana (almost to Texas) and grow both here, though I am generally limited to low to medium chill hour stone fruit, and cold hardy citrus, even then the citrus will need active freeze protection (covering, heat lamps, etc.) at least once most winters. We also get plenty of rainfall most years (averaging something over 60 inches of rain per year, and have ample ground water for irrigation during rare droughts (the last one was the summer of 2011). The down side is hot summers, lots of humidity and requirement to spray stone fruit trees. As to what can be grown here without excessive effort, cold hardy citrus like Satsumas, low chill plums and peaches, asian pears, and low chill european pears, blackberries, blueberries (if one is lucky to have low pH soil), muscadines, some types of kiwi, strawberries, mayhaw, … With a little effort it is possible to have something ready to harvest here between May - December, if there is a mild winter citrus harvest may last into February.
You can get used to the heat here if you don’t use air conditioning. I’ve learned that a few times when I’ve gotten up with the sun and started working outside. Providing you stay hydrated and get a little shade from 12 o’clock on, you’ll be okay albeit uncomfortable. I imagine if you kept going for days and weeks without air conditioning, you’d get to the point it would be much easier to deal with, though you’d probably still like to spend your afternoons on a shady porch with a glass of Lemonade.
If you’re constantly going in and out of air conditioning however, you won’t get used to it. I mean, you’ll expect it, but it will never be something you’re comfortable with.
The site should default to the ‘Area of Interest’ tab at the top. Then go to → ‘Quick Navigation’; select ‘Address’ and type it in; select “AOI” box in the Area of Interest Interactive Map that appears on the right side of screen; then select ‘Soil Map’ tap from the top horizontal menu tab. This brings up the type of soils present in the area selected and you can click on them for a description of the soils, including agricultural info and drainage classification, as well as a description of the subsoil layers.
The larger the area you select, the more types of soil will be in the list which may get too cluttered, but it does list the types in order of prominence and gives which percentage of the area each soil takes up.
There is a lot of information available on this site for the entire country which is probably why it is a bit cumbersome to use. I think the government has been compiling and refining this info for over a hundred years and now has it on an interactive website.
Under the ‘Soil Data Explorer’ tab (if you then click ‘Vegetative Productivity’) it will even give you info such as “Vinifera Wine Grape Desirabilty Rating”, “Black Walnut Suitabilty Index”, “Minnesota Crop Productivity Index”, etc…
