Wow, what a great, sunny location for your garden! Regarding the tilling, you should do some research on lasagna gardening--you can kill a couple of birds with one stone on that one (adding good nutrient to a new garden, preventing the grass regrowing/growing through, and NO MORE TILLING!!!). Lasagna gardening is simply layering (lasagna style!) mulch and compostable materials into your garden until the garden itself is compost. Furthermore, it supposedly results in no new weeds (I am only just trying it out, container-style, this year for the first time), but that may depend upon the layers that you use and what's in them. It's probably too late to find some fall leaves, unless you have a local extension or agency that can point you to some--I have some for my composter, but I ain't shippin' 'em to ya' from Colorado!!! Besides, I need them for my own garden. ;-D Anyway, you have more than enough "mulch" answers here--very good, all of them. Points to remember: different things work for different people, different climates, and different end purposes. Maybe you don't mind pulling the occasional weed or two, in which case, straw or hay might not be a problem. You've gotten some great advice from some seasoned gardeners, here, and if I may make one more suggestion on your garden plan, check which things grow shorter than others, and put those all on the south side. Cukes, lettuce, radishes should all be to the south of peas, tomatoes, and most herbs (although, herbs should be south of the peas & 'maters). I would even suggest doing the herbs in pots that you can pull out come wintertime--there's nothing like fresh herbs in the deepest darkest pit of winter. One comment I must make, however, is that, according to the size/scale of your wheelbarrow, your plot doesn't look even close to large enough for what your plan shows--pumpkins can take over an entire garden, and tomatoes, well, they have a character all their own! If that's your house in the background, surely you won't be feeding the small army that 8 tomato plants will produce in your zone. Be sure to give enough room for everything, and if this is your first (or even second or third... or twenty-third!) attempt at gardening, it's common (a common "sickness" among gardeners?) to try to put to much into too small a space. Go with less-you'll be able to figure out what works and doesn't, what you'd try again and what you'd do differently. Do keep a journal of your dates, notes, etc (it doesn't have to be formal, but I do suggest using a non-water-soluble pen, since it's not uncommon for garden journals to get "watered" with the rest of the garden from time to time!) so you'll know what's what for next year. And yes, just like in sports, "there's always next year!" Welcome to gardening, and please post back to let us know how your garden turns out! You're very wise to plan in such detail!!!

I have sandy soil too, though there is no rock or gravel whatsoever. Ignore the ants, they can not damage your garden. With sandy soil, you need very large amounts of organic matter. It will get absorbed in the soil over time, improving water retention. The fact that tomatoes did well there means also that the soil is not bad. It just needs to go from sandy to loamy. You can lay a large amount of compost, wood chips, manure, dead leaves, or organic grass clippings on top. Although that will restrict your choices for a few years, it will not be too much work, and the final soil will be of the highest quality. Your choice restriction comes from the fact that many veggies do not grow well in or through unfinished organic matter. Fortunately, asparagus tomatoes and zucchini do grow well in that case, which means youcan garden this year, and next year you will have a much better bed already. So, my advice: 1) take out what rocks you can take 2) cover bed with organic matter. You should be able to get manure, wood chips, grass clippings (beware of those treated with herbicide) and dead leaves for free. You can start with six inches but plan on adding one foot over the years. Add cinder block sides if it becomes too high. 3) the soil will take time to warm now and your season will be slightly late compared to your neighbor. Do not mind it. Choose section for asparagus and plant crowns through the mulch. 4) in May, plant tomatoes and zucchini in the other part of the bed. Plant plants through the mulch, not seeds. 5) You can also plant pole beans on the north side of the bed. They will benefit neighboring veggies, and they like sandy soil. You will need a trellis for them. You can also consider potatoes, they, too, do not mind growing in and through mulch. Melons would be just as good, but they need warmer soil. 6) starting next year you can try seeding veggies that need finer soil (carrots, lettuce), where the mulch has broken down best. Replenish mulch where bigger plants are being grown, so you maintain the long term feeding of the soil. It is always best to add mulch in the Fall.

Hi! I am very far from a garden expert, but we had the exact same issue a couple of years ago. My hubby was kind enough to dig one large bed about 18-24 inches deep or so into our rocky soil (we're in the mountains, might not be as rough for you) using a shovel and a pick axe. We added another 10 inches frame on top with unfinished 2x10's I think. Or was it 1x10's... Anyhow, he reinforced the corners with posts that fit deep down into the hole. Then we lined the bottom with chicken wire (to deter gofers up here) and refilled it with a mixture of the limey dirt we dug up, peat, purchased sand, mulch. It is quite a fertile little plot and worked well for tomatoes, etc...You can fit quite a bit into it. It is about 4x6, like you mentioned. For our herbs, strawberries, etc... I dug very shallowly,just a few inches, and placed some old small (2'x3'x8"deep), unfinished pine rectangular shelves on top that we had out in the shed and mixed in a few ammendments with the dirt to increase depth and quality. They worked really well and I had plenty of room to grow lots of stuff in about four of them. It took very little work since the shelves were aleady built and I just plopped them on to add a little more depth for the roots. They are small so don't need reinforcement and have held up for two years now and still look strong. If you wanted to look around for shelves at yardsales,etc... you could probably make a zillion little beds like that. It would be an easy way to add on different herb plots, etc...to the garden in stages. I included a link to show the open style shelves I'm talking about, but lots of other things would work. Also, for a few more veggie plants (tomatoes etc...) and so as not to be restricted to the one large bed, I dug just a few "holes" into the ground and filled with ammended soil and surrounded each one with a tomato cage. Plus added a few of those plain large black plastic tubs which are big enough for just about any single plant or patio tomatoes/cukes or something. If you want everything to look nice, some gravel paths or something would dress it up, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Anything looks good full of plants of course anyway. Hope I've given you some ideas at least. Good luck! Heather Here is a link that might be useful: Open Shelves

I think Dave covered it fairly well. I'm one of those who uses the [modified] Sq. Ft. Gardening planting method, but using in-ground beds. Depending where you live, clay can be extremely nutritious soil. In most cases though, as Dave mentioned, fairly heavy additions of compost will really help. My soil here in E. Tn. is mostly clay (all clay in the upper sections of the garden,) and it produces an incredible amount of produce from my 4' x 18' beds. For this year, I would add the compost, and then come fall, turn about a 6" layer of fall leaves (or any other type of readily decomposable organic materials - such as grass clippings, used coffee grounds, etc... if you wish) right into the soil. If you can shred them before turning them under (many just run them over with a lawn mower,) they will incorporate faster, but even if you turn them in whole, unless you're in an area with very long winters and deeply frozen ground, by spring the worms (and other soil life) will have supplemented your beds with a fair amount of worm castings (a decent fertilizer, and great source of organic matter.) Follow that basic schedule (compost in the spring, organic materials in the fall) for 2 - 3 years, and use an organic mulch during the growing season, you'll soon have a bed that will be easy to maintain with just a little compost and a surface mulch each year. You'll hardly remember it's clay.