If you garden in the warm sunny pocket above the fog, the satsuma mandarin is close to a sure thing. The Banana Belt gives this already-easy citrus the extra heat it does not even strictly need, which means earlier, sweeter, more generous fruit with very little effort on your par

Variety-by-variety growing guides for Santa Cruz County's microclimates: the coastal fog belt, the Banana Belt, the San Lorenzo Valley, and the Pajaro Valley.

If you garden down in the Pajaro Valley around Watsonville, you have some of the best flower ground in the county under your feet. Commercial cut-flower fields thrive on these rich valley soils, and ranunculus is right at home here with a little attention to drainage and frost po

If you garden in Felton, Ben Lomond, or Boulder Creek, whether you can grow a Roma depends almost entirely on which part of your property you are standing in. The SLV is a split reality: sunny ridges can do it, shaded redwood canyons cannot.

If you garden in the cool, gray-morning strip right along the coast, from the West Side of Santa Cruz out toward Davenport and along the marine-influenced flats, this is your good news page. The fog belt is genuine flower-farm country, and ranunculus is one of the crops it grows

If you garden in the county's warm sunny pocket, the hill belts above the fog around Soquel, Aptos, and the sunnier side of Santa Cruz, this is the good news page. The Banana Belt is the best place in Santa Cruz County to grow a Roma.

If you garden in the county's warm sunny pocket, the hill belts above the fog around Soquel, Aptos, and the sunnier side of Santa Cruz, ranunculus is a good and rewarding crop here, with one small adjustment for your extra warmth.

If you garden in Watsonville, Corralitos, or anywhere in the south county where the fog burns off early, you have the county's warmest microclimate and its richest soil. Zucchini is wildly productive here. The trick is keeping up with it and managing real summer pest pressure.

If you garden under the redwoods of Felton, Ben Lomond, or Boulder Creek, potatoes are one of the more forgiving crops you can grow. They do not demand the blazing sun a tomato needs, they like the valley's cool air, and the main thing you have to read is your frost pockets and y

If you garden in the fog belt, from Davenport down through the Santa Cruz, Capitola, and Aptos coast, the honest truth is that Romas are a stretch here. You can grow them, but you have to stack the deck.

Honest answer first: the San Lorenzo Valley is a poor fit for citrus in the ground. Redwood shade, acidic soil, and cold-air frost pockets all work against a Meyer lemon. There is a real workaround, but it is a container on a sunny ridge, not a tree in the canyon.

If you garden in Watsonville, Corralitos, or the south-county flats and benches of the Pajaro Valley, potatoes are an easy win in your deep, rich ground. This is the warmest, earliest pocket in the county on some of the best farm soil in California, and a root crop that wants loo