I'm thinking about starting a garden in on my little patio at my apartment, but I'm not sure what to grow. I live in Washington state at the moment, but I had lived in Florida throughout my teenage years (when I was learning about gardening) and the climate here is obviously different. Any suggestions or tips?

most any garden veggie will do fine, try to pick varieties that don't need a long growing season (it's a tad late to be starting now...), or pick up starter plants at your local nursery/home depot. they will all be selected for growing in WA...

I might just wait until next year.. this way I'll have everything well planned out. I'm used to things that survive in tropical weather like mangoes, lemons, bananas, yummm... :)

well, forget about all of that stuff!!

when I lived in WA, I grew bean, peas, lettuces, radishes, carrots, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries.... etc.......... I didn't have much luck with corn, but other people I knew did okay.

Plus you can grow squash, pumpkin, fennel, toms, herbs (dill, cilantro etc. etc.).

Now that I'm thinking about it, are you in Western or Eastern Washington? I lived in Western (coastal) washington. Across the mountains is a completely different climate and I don't really know what would grow there.

It's not to late to set out tomato plants - you can grow beautiful patio tomatos...Fred Meyer has nice sized plants on sale...

Also, I've grown zucchini and yellow squashes in containers. Every herb you can think of...and there's still plenty of time if you set out already started plants...

I intersperse green herbs with colorful petunias and marigolds and I have beautiful and useful pots on my patio until October...

Hi! I found that zucchini grow really well for me. Garlic does well, and carrots. If carrots are too small, you can just leave them in the ground a second year. I haven't had much luck with corn either, or tomatoes. I think of both needing a longer/hotter season to do well, though farmers seem to do okay with corn that I buy from their roadside stands. Mints do plenty well in a reasonably moist area. Blueberries do great -- modulo having more than one cultivar with the same flowering season for cross-pollination. You could get some of the smaller types that only get 18' high or so, and keep them in containers. Lettuces do okay, too, though they can be real slug-magnets. Some potatoes planted in my garden did okay, though they didn't get huge -- they were an heirloom variety from France so maybe they never do. I did snow peas a few years back and they did okay too - I think I managed two crops in one season.