Annie, honey, you didn't say where you plan to move. If you come "south", that could be any number of states. Within my fair state of Georgia, there are several climate zones. The state has mountains, rolling hills, and coastal areas. Alligators don't crawl very far north!! Fire ants are a nuisance but so are wasps, bees, snakes and many other kinds of varmits.
My south has four seasons. The temperatures here in northwest Georgia are fairly mild. I live in zone 7/8 depending on which map you look at. I can grow more plants than I know what to do with. Tropicals won't overwinter because it gets below freezing.
Since we mostly have indoor plumbing down here (tee hee), plumbers are quite necessary. Also, since most of you folks who are leaving the cold north are moving here, plumbers are needed to service the building boom.
Come on down...

Annie,

I moved from zone 5 almost 4 years ago (geez has it been that long?) Chicago area actually. there are not many things that I can't grow hear that I could grow there but many things that were full sun there can not take full sun here, things like that. I have a child who has not been eaten by anything yet so I guess I picked an okay area. Really you need to decide how far south you want to go, It still gets cold here (north of Atlanta) but not for long and not by Yankee standards. Many a January days you can go out without a coat but we did have one night a few years ago (in March I think) where it got down to 8 degrees that night. The trade off is the warmer you get in the winter the hotter you get in the summer. For me the worst three months of the year are July, August and September. So hot you can't stand to be outside most days. So I put up with the relative cold in the winter to keep from frying more the rest of the year.

I highly, highly, highly urge you not to move someplace because of weather. You may be leaving a lot more than a little discomfort behind.

Hey Annie, you can grow anything here that doesn't need cool nights or doesn't need a lot of chill days. But you will have a long, long growing season for vegetables.
Some things to think about before you move. I assume because your husband is a plumber you will have to live near a city or one of the big exurbs. If that is so, good luck finding five acres you can afford. More than likely you'll end up on 1/3 an acre or less. I've been in New Hampshire in the winter and seen everyone driving around with snow plows on their pickups, so I can understand wanting to get away from that weather. Check out Clarksville, Tennessee. I understand there's a big building boom there and they are really growing, but land might still be a good price there. Of course, we'd love to have you in Georgia.
The alligators won't get your kids, but sooner or later the fire ants will. And winter here isn't cold enough to kill fleas. Other than that, our critters are pretty much the same as yours.

You might want to make a vist down here before you decide to move. I love it here, but those "feels like" temps of 100 plus last week were pretty tough.

We have sales tax and income tax in this state ya know. We have ad velorum tax on vehicles registered here. Try $400 a year for my basic pickup truck. And they even tax our groceries! That money could go towards a closet full of designer coats amongst other things.

I have to agree with most everything thats been said. We moved down here 6 years ago from SE Massachusetts. I miss the lilacs, hate July, August and most of September and usually go North for as much of it as I can, love the long gardening season and mild winters (I no longer own a winter coat, well I leave it at my Mothers in Michigan for when I visit during winter holidays, at most I use a sweatshirt in the winter) And we are planning on retiring someplace where the heat isn't so intense in the summer. I'll take some real cold in the winter to get rid of some of the heat. We'll just need to build a greenhouse right away.

Don't believe the tales that housing is that much cheaper at least not in the Atlanta metro area. The area is very generic - lost much of its uniqueness. While your heating bill will be comparatively delightfully low your electric bill in the summer will be more than your winter heat bill was in NH. And then as mentioned there is the taxes - which can vary a great deal by county.

Good luck!

I don't know what you are all saying. It is still much much cheaper to live here than up north, of course depending on where you live.

I moved here from NY 6 years ago. We would never have been able to afford a house in NY let alone the house we have.

NH is beautiful, but the cold weather is harder to put up with than the heat. And it can get as equally as hot up there, not for as long, of course.

I moved to the coastal area of georgia 45 miles inland.I retired and did a lot of research of all the southern states and what was offered in each area. The busyness of the nothern states is what I was used to being right between the two Indian casinos in CT.

I moved to the town of Patterson for the smallness,but just twenty miles away is everything I need.

The taxes on my place of a three bed two bath brick house with two acres is just 165.00 a year. In CT it was 3300.00 for a 1200 sq ft cape with 1/2 acre. I was used to making 65,000 a year but I can comfortably live on just under 20,000.

There is a year round growing season,nov, dec,jan,feb, for cool weather crops and the rest is moderate till july then just hot weather crops til september. I get tomatoes cukes sqush in spring and fall and peppers eggplant and watermelons in the hot months. I start all the spring veggies again in the middle of august for the fall picking. BTW hot is just 90 to 95 during the day for most of the summer. The (winter) weather is mild with three frosts last year but the days warmed to 60 by noon.most night are in the lower 50's to mid 40's

Contact me by email and I will give you any answers that you have questions about.
fishermanpauljl@aol.com

True - if your going to a rural area you may find it less expensive or even cheaper, I was thinking from suburban to suburban as we did. The lot is smaller the house is bigger the taxes are the same. But if we were radically changing our lifestyle, ie going rural, rather than just moving from one metro area to another than there would be major changes.

A friend who moved to cherokee county from NH a couple of years ago said when they moved they sold their 145K house which had yearly taxes of $5000.00 and bought a 150,000. which now had $1500. in taxes. Water bill is more, 45 every month instead of every 3 months and food seems to be higher. She said their lifestyle really hasn't changed but overall its a little cheaper or even.

I'm not complaining. Oh ok, maybe a little...
What I dislike about this climate is that it's either uncomfortably warm or uncomfortably cool. More so of the latter. But there is very little in between. Maybe a month grand total worth of "ah this is nice weather" time. Then there is the rapid shifts from cold to hot and that's what drives me nuts. I'll take the cold weather... fine I'm happy. I'll take the hot weather... fine I'm happy. But give me both in a 24 hour period and I'm not a happy camper.

Poor quirky. Cool weather will be here soon. Just a little over a month to go until the humidity drops.

Hey there, (y'all)

I moved south,from phila. temporarily about seven years ago. Well.. I bought my house in Athens last year, I love it here. The gardening seems very different to me in some ways, the clay, the heat ,the droughts. While I am still learning, I do know quite a few sucsessful organic farmers. The movement keeps growing not only for herbs and veggies,but cut flowers, chickens, cheese etc..

You can still get a lot more house for the money around small cities like this one, and still have access to some of the things you might miss in very rural Ga.. movies, book stores, the nyt.

as for the heat..I have the air on now because my dog had knee surgery and needs to be ,but even on these hotter days if you can lay low between noon and 7pm I find I am o.k.

Plumbers and all construction workers are in steady demand as it seems we can never have enough new buildings down here!

the link is to give you an idea of pricing etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: real estate

I cannot thank all of you enough what wonderful advise, thought and opinions,I not just moving for weather reason
but financial reasons Its very very expensive up here even with kevin being a plumber and myself a top paid vet tech its
not affordable.
I love georgia dont know why just do I would like a nice old victorian (kevins idea of a nightmare)...ps I am also called a plumbers nightmare because of all the dirt i get Caught in the p-trap of the sink (hehe) was funny until he forced me to learn a little plumbing
My little house on 5acres is valued at 290,000 we bought it for 100,000 9 years ago... we have know high school and we are paying over 5,600 in taxes so i figure we can sell this dump by a nice house next to some really cool people like you-all or ya-all and be able to afford an exterminator unlike the bug man up here
we are plannig a visit next summer we are working with a realtor..but I just wanted the opinions of the real people like youselfs and not some-one making a sale
yomamanem you are a hot poo got to met ya someday
fisherman thanks kept your email
kathyga thank you just what i needed
sugar hill thanks for the critter advice thants what i was afraid of
woody its been so warm up here we haved record heat gave me that feeling of yuck so how many of them feel like temps of 100 are there and what area are you near
Quirky your very funny in a dreppressing way but you gave me a bit of a reality check
snoogie thanks that was very helpful
buford you hit it right on the nose
ground cover thanks you very much I hope your dog recovers well
and it was here cruciate expect the other to go soon keep a towel uder her belly for support

and again thank you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're welcome and being depressing is my specialty. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about moving to GA and I will try to help. I had been emailing with someone else earlier in the week who wanted to move from Florida.

And I love Victorians too. Funny though, you're moving from the place I'd tend to think there'd be tons of them to Ga and I guess you see some here from time to time but I'd be surprised if there were as many as up there. The cost of housing is definitely cheaper here, without a doubt.

My son has lived in Connecticut and NY for the last 5 years due to schooling and finding a job there. He and his wife (who is from Michigan) are really wanting to move back to GA. The heat is a lot easier to take than the cold. The whole lifestyle is cheaper and the people here are certainly friendly. Come on down!