Experience, Failures, and persistence. This is what makes a good gardener, and I have never met a veggie gardener who has not failed completely at least one season. If your going organic, there is a lot more you need in our sandy soil. You should take one season off to set the soil right (this coming fall, or winter season). Add lots of composted manure, rock phosphate and greensand to your soil, then mix it in, let it sit, mix more, let it sit, add compost, mix, then prepare for planting. A soil test will tell you what you need specifically, but it is not necessary, just don't add to much stuff to it. I like to make mounds for my plants and water the trenches so that the roots are never soaking but moist. Moist is what you want, not wet, not dry, but moist. For all the squashes, gourds, and melons, I would buy some of those tomato cages and turn them on their side, they shouldn't touch the ground, but training them like a vine is time consuming. Companion planting is a great idea to reduce bugs, you should really check it out. Some companion plants also improve yield and flavor, I always grow basil with my tomatoes, it improves their yield, growth, and flavor; it's also very convenient to have fresh basil leaves right next to sun ripened tomatoes (best combo ever). Gardening is about learning and having fun, so take your time, learn through research and trial and error, and stop to smell the blossoms (if your squash blossoms aren't setting, but look fine, fry them, their amazing).

Don't panic, patients is a virtue in gardening. Just make sure to keep everything moist enough (but not waterlogged) in the heat. You can always add organic matter on top of your soil as a mulch that will slowly break down and feed the soil microbes. Aged compost and worm castings are always safe to add and won't burn your plants. I like to fertilize using things like used coffee grounds or other seed meals since they are slow release fertilizers. If I have some greedy plants that like lots of nitrogen and phosphorus, I give them a small hand full of alfalfa pellets. Be careful with the blood meal as it is really strong and a little goes a very long way. Enjoy.

About a week and a half ago I shoved every bit of sewing detritus to the back end of my huge cutting table and brought out the wrapping paper. This was fine while I was wrapping gifts. Then the DH and the DS went into my studio to wrap gifts. I may never see the table again, LOL. Paper scraps, ribbon bits, tape on the cutting mat, and where the heck did they hide by 6 1/2 square ruler??!! I must find that before I hit it with the rotary cutter. I usually use the day after Christmas as a day to sort and play with new fabrics (DH bought me (5) 1/2 yard cuts and a 2 yard cut of gorgeous fabrics this year - he knows the way to my heart), but it will have to wait this year. I love taking this time of the year to sort and organize. BUT - my son has a new girlfriend. She's gone for the holiday, of course (they are seniors at UT Austin), but she will be back on Monday. He wants decorated cookies to take to her. I have plenty of gingerbread cookies baked (I give them to the neighbors), but he was serious - he wants to decorate them himself, because Krisztina doesn't believe that he can. He's really quite good at it. So I'm going to be up to my ears in royal icing in several colors - I mix, he decorates, LOL. Here are some he did last Valentine's Day (for a former girlfriend).

An extremely wet acidic soil at that. I could only manage a couple of bushes by planting in pots where the water butt used to collect from the shed roof. Continual dripping runoff, in ericaceous soil mix (and regular sequestrene) was the only way I could get any at all. Gave up and settled for blackcurrants and jostaberries while newly planted juneberry and saskatoons might have the first yield this summer. The wild plums (P.cerasifera) and almond blossom is already out (as well as the ubiquitous sloe - prunus spinosa)...I would grow any of these even without the additional crop potential (in fact the almond hybrid - an almond x apricot has horrible soft-shelled nuts which I leave on the ground as a mulch)...but the curl can be an issue. For the first time in living memory, I was on time with spraying at bud break and leaf fall at both ends of the year. It's creeping up on us...panic is in the post.