Thanks for your continuing suggestions! A couple of weeks ago, my Tomato plants' leaves started to change their color and become a bit brownish. I was really worried that the mild hale we had one night (roughly a week after they were planted) might have caused blight. I took a couple of samples (one bad looking old leaf and another newly growing one) to a local farming store (OC Farm Supplies in Anaheim, CA). The guy there was so patient and cooperative, he told me that he can't see any kind of disease with it and felt I might be watering them too much. Relieved, I came home and cut down on my watering routine of every other day to twice a week. It's been a week since and my plants are looking good already. Additionally, I went to the beach early Sunday morning and collected a couple of buckets full of Kelp. I soaked them in a big 13 gallon bin by filling it with water for about 12 hours. I took the thick juicy water out and added one part of this juice to an equal part of water and gave them to all my plants. There was enough left for me to give to my trees as well. This juice is THICK. Afterwards, I took out small chunks of this Kelp and laid it around my plants and covered them up with aged horse manure compost (which could double up as mulch, too). I am planning to repeat this process once a month throughout the growing season. From what I read, this thing is full of nutrients, so I am hoping this will help my plants to have enough of N-P-K. I bought Dr.Earth's Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer (5-7-3) but haven't fed them any of it yet. If I continue feeding them Kelp juice every other week, would that be enough or should I still be fertilizing more? I want to keep away from any store bought feed (like Dr.Earth's), if I can. Your expert advise will be grately apprecaited. Thanks, Telugu Raithu

If you have a good spade and garden fork digging out the weeds will probably take a few hours but will allow you to start using the beds this year. Once the weeds are out cover the soil with an inch or two of compost and add a quarter gallon of Steve Solomens's organic fertilizer per bed (4 parts cotton seed meal,1/2 part lime, 1/2 part bone meal, 1/2 part kelp meal). The lime helps combat the acidity of pacific NW soils and free up nutrients while the rest provides a great slow release fertilizer for your plants. Mix the compost and fertilizer into the top 3 inches of the soil and then water the beds well. Once that's done cover the beds with cheap clear plastic from home depot and secure the plastic around the edges with spare lumber, bricks or whatever you have to hand. Within a couple of weeks the soil will have warmed up and many of the weed seeds will have germinated. Remove the plastic and slice through the stems of the weed seedlings using a colinear or sickle hoe. This will kill them. Water the beds again and replace the plastic. After a couple more weeks you'll be able to kill off 90% of the remaining weed seedlings and plant your first plants into nice warm, rich soil. Good luck and let us know how it goes. SH

@daninthedirt, 8" is just the good stuff above the hardware cloth. Under that is decomposed granite AKA mostly sand with a little dirt. Hubs did dig down pretty far and tossed the soil around, but he didn't amend it. Nothing was growing there before, so it should have some nutrients.. The big worry is gophers. We do our best to control them, but it's an endless battle. There is no rock underneath. Decomposed Granite. The gophers have an easy life digging through sandish stuff. We do have lots of huge boulders on this property, but in this particular spot there are none. I am a huge fan of root pruning pots cuz I've seen the results with and without them. Air pruning a root is like pruning a branch. New branches appear. Same with roots. Nothing circles, just all the roots use every bit of dirt they can. It's a beautiful thing to see. If a gopher feels the need to nibble under the hardware cloth, the roots will just put out feeders. Pretty sure it will work. I'll be dosing with fertilizer often.

my guesses were going to be mulberry or poplar .. lol .. it has multiple leaders.. meaning its been cut back at least once ... you arent going to kill a tree by cutting it back only .... if there is one in the yard.. i would expect to find more... now that you know what they look like ... big momma has to be around somewhere ... ken