I live right on the line between Zone 7 and 8. I garden on raised beds. Here's my roster.

Summer Vegetables:
tomatoes (Celebrity, Rutgers, Yellow Pear for starters this year), peppers (Giant Marconi and Cayenne), eggplant (Japanese types: long and skinny), summer squash (yellow crookneck and Romanesco zuchini), Delicata winter squash (new this year), Spacemaster and Salad Bush cucumbers (both shorter vines), Zipper Cream Cowpeas, Pink Eyed Purple Hull cowpeas (new for me this year), Dragon Tongue pole beans (new this year), Jade Bush Beans (a haricot vert type), Louisiana Purple Pod pole beans, and I may try a cantaloupe vine this year.

Last year was my first ever fall garden and we enjoyed the vegetables through the winter as much as we do the summer ones. My successes were: carrots (Charentais types), Red Russian Kale (beautiful plants and so delicious), several types of lettuce (I planted way too much), bunching onions, and Purple Top turnips (they did well but I didn't like this variety).

The failures were: spinach, swiss chard, collards (I think I got bad seed).

I planted Sugar Snap Peas in mid January. They are about a foot high right now. It's supposed to be in the eighties all next week. I may not get any peas before the too warm weather arrives. But, that's how I learn....
We are still eating carrots, onions, lettuce, and Kale.

I am also in zone 7b-8a. I call it 8. I am in North Atlanta suburbs.
Here, we have 4 seasons but our springs and falls are often very short.
Instead we have very long summers. So this is not the best place to grow cold crops very easily.
Despite all that I grow lettuce, kale, aurugula, mustard greens, fall radish
and all sorts of allium.
Summer crop, you can grow just about anything you want.
Most tomatoes love hot humid summers here. So do eggplants, peppers,
squash, okra, melons and host of others.
I almost forgot THE herbs.They all do fine. I grow most culinary herbs.

I live in the cool, damp, short summer Zone 8 of the Pacific Northwest. I can grow most all the hot weather plants except melons, but tomatoes, peppers and eggplants need a little help with plastic covering in the spring and fall.

Yes, not all zone 8s are created equal.
I visit with my relatives in Portlan, OR and Seattle WA and I know this.
We, here in GA, have both colder winters and much warmer summers than in Pacific Northeast. Whie located in zone 8.

We're in zone 8, central Texas. We start gardening in February with broccoli, spinach, lettuces (Black Seeded Simpson, Oakleaf, Red Velvet, Buttercrunch, Romaine and Arugula), Cascadia peas, Red LaSoda potatoes, and chard. We just planted Tendercrop green beans, Rattlesnake pole beans, Celebrity and Bush Goliath tomatoes, Keystone Giant peppers, Nantes and Red Cored Chantenay carrots, Cowhorn okra, and yellow crookneck, Striata, and zucchini. We'll repeat the spring planting in the fall. Our down time is in July through mid-September when the heat shuts down the garden (except for the okra which can survive anything!).

malingardener, You seem to have even warmer weather than us here in Atlanta area.
But this year is exceptionaly warm here. Today it was in 80s.
I cannot believe that my okras are germinating in 5 days. this will be a
first for me to grow okra. I love it. So have done my luffa seeds, germinating in 5 days. Another first for me. Though I have grown all kinds of gourds last couple of years.No more this year.

Although our last frost date is like April 12, I have been planting tomatoes, peppere, eggplants as of April first. And my gamble is paying off.
The extende forecast has a bright outlook all the way to mid April.

I am growing more varieties of tomatoes(abou 8 or 9), more peppers(about 8 or 9),
three types of eggplants, 4 kinds of cukes and Five types of beans. I may let go of squash this year.

Happy Gardening all.
Cyrus

Thanks gang, you all have inspired me to think outside of the box.

I just finished expanding my vegetable garden from 8x4 to 12x8.

I'm really gonna get into it now.

Thanks!