I'm in sw Idaho and from what I hear we have some of the lowest home prices in the country right now. There's certainly enough people from California moving here right now! Our season is from May 5th to about October 5th. I use cold frames to extend my season. No thought on taxes except I hate them. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, so that's that! LOL

I'm currently in western Maryland but he average house is still about 225,000 despite declines of around 12% here. Despite the declines, my personal property taxes went up 40%!. I've compared various states property taxes and my 3500.00 a year is too high for when I retire.

My growing season here is April 22 thru Oct 22. Thank you for letting me know about the home prices in Idaho and the growing season.
~tom

I am hesitant to even say but the Florida panhandle is one of the most overlooked places ever. I'm nowhere near ready to retire, I just finished undergrad a couple of years ago at Florida State University in Tallahassee but it is hard to beat the area. The growing season is long and you even get a taste of the seasons with quite possibly the best fall weather in the country. The gulf coast isn't far and the people are friendly. Not sure on home prices but after moving from Florida to DC I sure do miss not having a state income tax!

Florida? thanks, I thought that Florida was vastly overpopulated and home prices still were too high, but falling. I'll check into the panhandle areas. Climate sounds nicer than central Florida.
~tom

The first $75k of your house is exempt in Louisiana. :) Don't know what that translates to tax wise, but I've heard we're the cheapest (or one of the cheapest) in the country. You can get some nice tracts of land for not too much. My hubby and I are getting a 4 bed/2 bath house on 0.4 acres of land in a nice neighborhood for less than $140k. I'm sure you could do even better since you won't have to worry about being close to anything but shopping. :)

There's a nice range of zones here too. You can go full tropical in the southern half to snow every other year in the North. (The food's better the further South you go though.)

1st 75k of your house is exempt! Nice info to know.
Finding out tax nuggets of favor is hard to do.
Thank you,
~tom

We moved outside Tulsa, Oklahoma after my husband retired. My husband is a disabled veteran and receives a tax break. We bought a 7 acre tract with a two story house for 180k. We have good weather and can grow vegetables from March to October. It rains very often so I don't worry about growing my plants. We are raising our own beef also. I hope this helps.

I'm in Oregon. While we do have high property taxes, land/house prices are very low. Additionally, we have a very mild climate, so we have cut our electric in half from California and we don't own an air conditioner. We get a couple of days of snow a year and an enormous amount of rain. We have friends with greenhouses growing kiwis and bananas nearby, lol. We can grow peas and green beans year round. I would also be living in San Diego if the cost wasn't oppressively high.

best for a garden...alaska where there is 20 hrs of daylight. many of the world records are held up there

Yes tennandy: Thats where the world's fastest wind speed is held.

Here is a link that might be useful: vegetable garden

I am wondering where in US is best for vegetable gardening year round. It seems FL is too humid and South West is too dry. Any advice?

We're moving to OK when my husband finishes his late-life PhD. This will be our retirement move. I've lived in OK for 12 years previously and it's a great place to garden, although it can, at times, be harsh. Lots of wind and hail, sometimes drought. I prefer the area around Stillwater or just west of Tulsa but there is a longer growing season near Lawton. You would need more irrigation near Lawton, though, as it can be very dry.

Third vote for Oklahoma. I live in the northeast corner of the State and near a beautiful lake. Housing is just about any price you want to pay ranging from lake front gated communities to very modest.

I was a military wife so I have lived in a lot of different places and this is my favorite. Our weather is a bit unsettling since we have a lot of tornado warnings in Oklahoma, but an excellent early warning system. The northeast part of the State is very wet especially in the spring. We are less than five months into the year and have received over 20 inches. The frost free season is said to be early April to about Halloween, but there are many nice days before and after those dates that allow you to grow the hardy crops, or more, if you add a little protection. I normally have salad greens until mid December if I remember to throw a cover on them on really cold nights. I stop gardening in December, and begin transplants inside in late February. I just use a light set-up and don't have a greenhouse (yet).

I live about 45 minutes from Joplin MO, and a lot of my shopping is done there. I live near a small resort town but we have a WM Supercenter and Lowes, fast food places, and numerous small businesses.

As I am typing, the window is open and at midnight it is 73 degrees. From the garden we have had radishes, green onions, sugar snap peas, various lettuces and salad greens, a few stawberries from a new bed, and in future years should have asparagus and several berries. Almost all of my summer crops are in the ground, except those that will follow the broccoli and onion harvests. The broccoli is just beginning to head and the onions are just bulbing.

I have not had to water in-ground plants at all except for new plantings in raised beds, and that has only been a couple of times. Summers are hot and I will probably water a few times in the hottest part of summer.

I have been trying to get 'tracydr' above to consider the NE corner, but so far she seems to be favoring the horse country and the college towns. LOL I can't say much more about that tho, since my youngest son graduated from there and my husband did his Masters there. Tracy, I understand what your husband is doing as I have a son just completing a PHD in Texas. I wondered if he would ever make it through high school, so who knew? LOL

I'm still looking around your area, soonergrandmom. In fact, I found an amazing farm near you that I would love to buy if housing prices in AZ come back up so that we can sell our house.
Is there any kind of college within an hour of you? My husband will need to find a place to teach.

We have had nothing but tornadoes, wind, rain and hail since I posted this, and of course my Joplin shopping area no longer exists. I picked a poor time to recommend my area. LOL

I was just thinking of you and also my friend with the farm for sale. That tornado sounded a lot like The OKC tornado, which I watched form over Anadarko, just north of me when we lived near Meerschaum and Elgin.
Glad you're OK. I guess this tornado didn't cover quite as much ground as the OKC tornado, but it sure was deadly.
I saw damage from the OKC tornado all the way from Anadarko up to the Stroud outlet mall, which disappeared in the storm.

Tracy, I remember that one too. I lived in southern Oklahoma at the time and I was shocked to see what that tornado did, and I grew up in Oklahoma. They never did rebuild that outlet mall. I haven't been to Joplin but I looked at the Google map of the destroyed area and it is just terrible.

The death toll only went up by one today but it sounds as if it is going to increase because they say many people are still missing. So sad.

First of all, how awful for the people in Joplin and all the other areas so hard hit by tornadoes this year.

I live in eastern Washington (five miles from Idaho) and my growing season is pretty short...first of June to the end of August. Of course, that's only a problem with tomatoes and other frost sensitive plants...many of the others still do fine. While I don't have a greenhouse, I hope to add one soon.

We do have long winters, lots of snow and this spring has been unusually wet. However, we have lovely summers, hot but no humidity and we're half an hour from Lake Coeur d'Alene. There's not much crime (very little in our area) people can still make a living farming, very few pests and plant diseases and the only negative in the garden is the cold. We get down to -27 F. but in town (Spokane or Coeur d'Alene) it's more of a zone 5, I believe. They're growing season is mid-May through mid to late September. A lot of people go to Arizona for the winter when they retire and spend the summers in our area. I guess you could garden year round, in two areas :)

Fl. growing season would depend on what area of Fl. you reside in. I have a friend in the Orlando area that gardens year round. She spends very little on fresh veggies and she grows an amazing variety! She also puts up very little since she can grow it nearly all the time. Of course, there is always the chance of a hurricane there.

I'm in SW Ga. and our growing season is from around late Feb. to mid/late Nov. And then we plant the onions to over-winter for a spring harvest. I've grown cole crops all during the winter here...it just gets too hot for them during the summers.
And prices for land & houses here is really cheap compared to other parts of the country. Property taxes aren't too bad and the state income tax is lower than a lot of others too.

I have to throw San Diego a bone, being that I'm down here. There are some very affordable parts of San Diego to live in that are right within your price range. If you want to be by the beach you are going to pay for it but go inland or in what were some of the more undesirable neighborhoods as of a few years ago that are starting to get a face lift and you can get quite a lot for your money. I have recently bought in the Grant Hill neighborhood and put solar panels in. I got a three bedroom two bath craftsman on a 6000 sq ft lot for 200,000 roughly and my solar panles actually make me money most months of the year. Add to that that your property taxes cannot go up in CA and it an affordable and great place to garden and live.