I only plant the smaller ones (Banner). The plants are 10% smaller, but indistinguishable from Windsor otherwise. As soon as the ground unfreezes I will put in a few hundred of them.

Not always. My guess is that the local city compost is made mostly with leaves, but for sure the pH is 8.2. They give you a fact sheet that says 8.2, and I measured it to be between 8 and 8.5. That is fine around here, with soils being mostly acid. If you add that compost to San Diego soil, you may be well over 8, and nothing will grow much (I note that a high pH typically inhibits N absorption, so some facts on the ground are consistent with the hypothesis). I second the test soil. A good, mild, long term acidifier is wood chip mulch, though that prevents direct seeding. Now, to the PO: there are some veggies that will do well in incredibly heavy soil, learn to love them. Carrots are not one of them. Fava, radicchio, cardoon, and brassicas are my best winter performers in heavy clay. Chard, beet, and brassicas are my best winter high pH performers (around here, they demand quite a bit of wood ash on the side), so you could get some orientation by comparing growth rates of indicator veggies. It is a good idea to have some unfinished, fairly green compost (ground coffee is good, but I prefer decomposed kitchen scraps which have just stopped smelling) in heavy beds at all times to keep a high earthworm population. Over the years, they will turn the soil very well for you. I assume you have had abundant rains, some seeds really want that to germinate vigorously.

Kaity, In all honesty, I am not so sure your results with a fall planting will be any more successful than your spring planting this year, so I encourage you to think about how a fall planting is likely to perform if the weather for the next 6 to 8 weeks continues along in basically the same pattern we've had for the last 6 weeks or so. The OSU-recommended planting dates for snap beans for the fall garden are: Pole Beans July 15th - July 30th Bush Beans Aug 10th - Aug 20th To use these dates as OSU intended, you should know that the earlier dates are for folks in northern OK in the fall, and the later dates are for folks in southern OK in the fall. (In the spring it is the exact opposite.) Consider too that research has shown that every type of seed has soil temperatures at which it will or won't germinate well. With beans, the best soil temperature for them is 77 degrees. At that temperature, 97% of your bean seeds will germinate and they'll do so in an average of 8 days. If your soil temperature is 86 degrees, you'll get slightly faster germination--just 6 days, but only 47% of your bean seed will germinate. And, if your soil is a toasty 95 degrees, you'll get germination in 6 days as well, but only 39% of your seeds will germinate. If your soil temperature is 104 degrees or hotter, you'll get 0% germination. You can figure out your average soil temperature by using a thermometer with a probe (like a standard kitcen meat thermometer). Take the temperature of bare soil during midafternoon when temps are highest and take it about 2" below grade level. Record your soil's temperature for 3 to 5 days and average together the results. If the soil temp is higher than is ideal, you might want to find some way to increase your seed's chance of germinating, like germinating them inside in damp paper towels, for example, and then planting them out into the ground as soon as they sprout in the paper towel. Or, you could plant them in the ground and temporarily shade the ground with sheets or shade cloth to help keep it cooler, which could help give you better germination. If you are planting them in the ground into soil that is pretty hot, you need to plant more seeds than usual to make up for the significantly lower germination rates. Are you seeing many grasshoppers in your area? Grasshoppers love to eat bean plants, especially in July and August when there's not a lot of green around. You may need to protect your young bean plants from the grasshoppers. The grasshoppers this year are bad here where I live, but not as bad as they were last year when they stripped all my bean plants down to naked stalks in July and August. Finally, green beans grow and produce best when air temperatures are in the 70s, so since those air temps are a long way off, especially in this hotter-than-average year, try to time your plantings so your plants will be blooming when temps are in the 70s. Accomplishing this is always tricky with fall beans, and I expect it will be trickier than usual this year. You might look at your soil temps, look at your OSU-recommended dates, and choose to plant a week later than OSU says in order to let the air cool down a little more. The problem with waiting a little bit is that you have that inevitable first frost looming in mid-autumn. I'm not saying "don't plant beans" but rather consider all the factors that go into getting a successful stand of beans and decide if it is worth it. If you choose to plant them, you're going to have to work really hard to offset the negative effects of this year's terrible heat and drought conditions. I'm going to link one of the soil temperature maps from the OK Mesonet for you. You can look at the average soil temps in your area and it will give you some idea of what to expect in your own garden. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Bare Soil Temp at 2

I also have clay soil. Clay and limestone. It's been a process trying to amend with compost. I picked up 10 yards this past spring that I got on sale ($20/yd). That's a large expense to try on an annual basis and am attempting to grow cover crops this year. I'm growing fava bean, hulless oats, crimson clover, and hairy vetch. I would love it if I could improve my soil by next spring this way. If anyone has experience with growing cover crops in clay hopefully they'll share some experience with us. I want to start on my front yard next and would love if I could just throw seeds out and have everything grow without any more intervention from me but my guess would be that tilling might be a minimum requirement for getting the cover crops started.