>> at the moment is hard summer so it's very hot most of the time and the area is very sunny. Hard time to start anything without copious amounts of water. Heck, itâÂÂs a hard time. Period. I would strongly suggest an airy mulch such as straw instead of a flat mulch such as bark or wood chips. Both can work well, but in your high temperatures you need insulation on the soil. >> should i use those small water sprinklers or drippers at the beginning? If you can, itâÂÂs easier to control the watering with slow drip emitters and you control the amount with time. Most plants do not need to have their leaves watered, so the less water that gets sprayed, the better. Sprays can be helpful when seeding, but I use lines of drip tubing (with the holes all along its length) covered with lots of airy-type mulch to keep the surface, and thus the small seeds, from drying out. It seems to work well. I do hit it with a hose occasionally. However, end emitter drip in the desert carries the possibility of a hidden problem. With very stingy drip and good drainage, such as with "sandy compost" ground, you can have underwatering in a way. You can drip water for an entire day and although the water has gone down quite a bit there might be no trace of moisture in the soil just one foot away. Be sure to check often for what is NOT getting watered. >> how long to water each session depending on what method will be used to watering. Your times depend on your results. HowâÂÂs THAT for a wimpy answer! We have had less than an inch/25mm of rain in the entire year so far, so the drip system is everything. At times I watered cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers every single day. Now itâÂÂs every three days at 100+F/39C+. The tomato roots are huge and the plants wilt at about four days in the full sun. Most everything else gets watered along with them since the drip system has only two circuits.

Keep in mind that plants want to grow, and very often they will grow in spite of what we do to them and the soil they grow in. What we need to do is learn about the plants we want to grow and the types of soils they evolved in and try to replicate that. Most of what we want to grow needs a soil well endowed with organic matter that is evenly moist but well drained. There are, however, some plants that need leaner, meaner soils to grow and develop the flavors we want them to have, think herbs. Rather than trying to make a "Loam like soil" make what you have into a soil that is good and healthy (balanced nutrients and soil pH) that will grow strong and healthy plants. Mostly, that means adding enough organic matter which sounds very simplistic but is more difficult then it appears, sometimes. It is a concept that is difficult for some to grasp. To know if your soils pH and nutrients are in balancve means a good, reliable soil test. Contact your local office of the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service about having that done, and then dig in with these simple soil tests, 1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. 2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains� too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy. to see what you have and what you need to do to make that soil better. Here is a link that might be useful: UI CES

Do not leave it near the surface where it could cause harm to delicate roots. I'd love to hear the explanation of how this works :-) I mulch with 100% compost and have for years. And since mulching generally refers to topdressing, thus the product being right on the soil surface, the above caution should have resulted in a lot of root damage. NOT!! If it is anywhere close to being 'finished', compost will not harm plants and certainly won't cause them to die. You may not get optimim growth for various reasons, some of which Al outlined, not to mention that the beds will experience significant shrinkage (anywhere from 30-70%) but the plants will still grow. For heaven's sake, lasagne gardening is essentially planting in 100% compost, most not even very well finished, and scores of gardeners have wonderful success with this method. I am always cautious and a little uneasy when posters make such dogmatic, absolute statements that this method WILL NOT work, DON'T DO this or your plants will die or that this method MUST BE followed. 30+ years of gardening both personally and professionally and a formal education in horticulture has lead me to the conclusion that there are NO absolutes in this business. What works in one situation may not work equally as well in another and there are optimal practices that will provide consistent, predictable results but few, if any, absolutes :-)

Mike, Moni gave great advice. Every bag of leaves you can come up with is a huge plus. Some people (and I'm not naming names here) drive around and pick up bags of leaves that folks rake and bag and put curbside for garbage pickup. Once you have the leaves, you can poke holes in the bags to allow air and rain inside and you can compost them right there in the bags OR you can chop them up with a lawn mower or leaf shredder and add them to a compost pile OR you can chop them/shred them and pile them up right on top of the future site of your veggie garden. If you do the latter, pile them up at least a foot thick, water them with a sprinkler every now and then to keep them moist, and let them sit there all winter. They'll smother the vegetation beneath them, they'll keep weeds from sprouting, and they'll decompose quite a bit by spring--and then you can rototill them into the soil to enrich it. Some cities also chip and shred tree trimmings into mulch and give it away free to residents. If you live in an area that does that, get all you can and pile it up near your future veggie garden site. You can use it to mulch pathways, or you can let it decompose and add it to beds. If you are in a rural area and have an electric co-op, either they or the tree service they use may be willing to give you their chipped/shredded tree trimmings too. One important thing to do now is to go ahead and select the spot now that you're going to use for a veggie garden plot in the spring. Once you've done that, study your soil. You can do the old jar test to determine the composition of your soil. (I've linked an article below that describes how to do the jar test and tells you how to interpret the results.) This well help you figure out what percentage of your soil is sand, loam, silt, clay or organic material. The odds are, no matter what kind of soil you have, the main thing it will need is organic material. Organic material can be added in many ways.....including via the use of compost, peat moss (much inferior to compost but readily available....I don't use it myself), chopped up or shredded leaves, old straw, old hay (beware the weed seeds though), composted animal (cow, chicken, rabbit) manure, pine bark fines, composted cotton burrs, cottonseed meal, etc. A soil test would be a valuable tool to help you determine in advance if your soil has any major nutritional deficiencies. If it does, people here can tell you what to add to your soil to overcome those deficiencies. However, the truth is that if you add lots of compost, then pretty much any nutritional deficiency you find can be corrected via the compost. Do your research now and figure out if you are going to have raised beds, or not. How are you going to irrigate, if needed? Sprinklers are commonly used, but put tons of water on leaves and that can lead to TONS of foliar diseases. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation put water into the soil where needed and are more economical, since you won't be losing a lot of water to evaporation the way that you do with sprinklers. If you are going to use raised beds, build them this fall, enrich the soil, and have yourself ready to plant in spring. Do not wait until spring to begin preparing the soil, because heavy spring rains can prevent you from working the soil....fall preparation is vastly superior. It all starts with the soil, so start there. However, winter is also a great time to do your research and planning. Figure out what you want to grow and figure out the amount of space needed to carry out your plans. Draw a layout on paper and plan what will go where. Planning ahead helps prevent mistakes. If you've never composted, it's time to start. NOTHING improves soil like compost. Watch your land and see how rainfall disperses. Good drainage is very important and you should have good drainage if you have sandy loam, but watch how water runs across the land and drains and make sure. If you are in a rural to semi-rural area, go ahead now and figure out how you're going to keep all the wildlife out of your garden. Even a 2' or 3' chicken wire fence is better than nothing. Don't assume the critters won't come after your garden, because they will. Good luck, Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Fine Gardening Article: Jar Soil Test