Guys, forget the zones when talking about Europe. It's way different here. Michael James is zone 7 and he literally borders with dessert (having the same weather in summer as I might conclude, no rainfall for long periods...), yet I live in zone 7b/8a, but I have much milder summer temps, really milder. What I wrote Michael was and I stand by it: If you put any plant into the soil in the spring, you don't have to take care or irrigate, it wil be ready bo October anyway (corn, wheat, tomatoes... whatever). Irrigation is here done only to time the flowering and fruiting of the plants.
The usual summer temps of his region are like Kalabrian's, whereas mine are much milder. Also, rainfall in USA isn't the same as here. Say it to my few dead palms.
And I haven't said a word about the frosts. I won't lie, when I say, that you have no idea, what frost or freezing is. My area is once in a year affected by the Russian cold front and as we all remember, that can be pretty nasty, especially for people in temperate regions (consider the frozen Napoleon army and Wehrmacht's tanks with people all over the Russia, Genghis-Kans frozen divisions...).