golden gate gardening by pam pierce, she holds classes at sfcc

Your bins look OK. Maybe not enough soil when picture was taken, looks like it will settle pretty far down. We lived on 33rd and Rivera when first married and had very little sun in the summer. No chance to grow any summer vegetables requiring real sun. Have you thought of looking into the Square Foot Gardening forum? Al

I have been adding lots of compost, but still I need more. I am going to have to buy some before planting. It just seems to get broken down very fast. I can not generate enough home made compost in the winter.

Compost should be a part of your raised bed soil, but not a major part. What soil are you working with? Either a clay or a sand based soil benefits from having up to about 5% compost content. It is reasonable to expect more compost will need to be added yearly as it breaks down in the mix. Al

I have all sand, but the soil in the planter boxes seems to be clay based. I bought the soil from somewhere or other, my gardener got it for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Newer view of one planter box

Purchased soil is usually sold as "topsoil" and is a mix of clay. silt, and sand, with up to 2 or 3 percent humus. As there is no specified "recipe" for topsoil the percentages of each ingredient can vary widely. Generally this works fine for vegetable growing. If you have a lot of shrinkage of your soil level I would expect you have more than the normal amount of vegetative matter in the mix. If you want to bring up the soil level I would ask your gardener for more of his soil mix. Al

Maybe supersoil would be good? It's kind of cheap to buy at home depot and it has sand which may balance out the clay. I don't think I can get the same soil again without a big order, but I did kind of steal a some soil from my boxes when I was planting new things from time to time. I don't know if I want it filled all the way to the top of the box, but I guess I should be a little higher. I am putting off my planting until after this El Nino things is really over.

I moved to the East Bay from the east coast, and bought a used copy of "Northern California Gardening: A Month-by-Month Guide" by Katherine Grace. Since the growing cycle is different here vs east coast, and I'm new to gardening in general, I've found this book a helpful guide for what to do when. The author recognizes the different micro-climates of this region, and also discusses everything from native plants, trees, to fruits/veggies. You may be able to find it at your library--that's where I first discovered it before buying.

I highly recommend checking out the square foot and vegetable forums here. You'll see many people from your zone and can see what they're growing.

Happy growing!

I would second using the library as a resource to flip through a few books before purchasing. I'd also add one about edible landscaping as well, either by Rosalind Creasy or Robert Kourik.

I have both books on hold at the library, I use the San Mateo system. It's better to look before buying. I have been to the square foot forum also.

You might want to check out one of the older Sunset Publishing titles, "The Edible Garden".

Supersoil is a good quality potting mix that you could add to your boxes to bring up the soil level. If possible wait to work your soil until it drains enough of the rain water to allow you to mix with out clods forming. Al

If you are looking for soil for your beds or for else where in the garden, I highly recommend the landscape supply companies American Soils in Richmond or Lyngso in Redwood City. You can get a variety of mixes for not a whole lot of money. Much, much cheaper than the bagged selections at any garden center. You can buy it by the bag or the truck load. I beef up my raised beds every year with bags of organic compost from Lyngso. I think I spent $3 per 2 cubic foot bag.

I got golden gate gardening by pam pierce, and it's not a bad book for the microclimate information, but I don't need to buy it now. It has a lot of you cannot do this and you cannot do that. For example being that IÂm in the fog zone, I cannot grow tomatoes or corn. When you have a problem like a blight she has a lot of can and can nots. I wish she offered more alternates to can situation with the pros and cons instead. I would rather Google the topic to get a number of different opinions, and then mull the situation over in my mind. It give me something to think about.

I went to the Lnygso website and it's bad, they have a lot of stuff there, but they don't deliver. The "compost" in the photo looks like they kind they dye black, the color did not look natural. It's not a good as making a labor intense food scraps compost. I add star bucks coffee and osh redwood bark shredded, and it's the only compost I really need. They have seminars there. And there is a garden to view, but thatÂs not the kind of plants I like to grow, the lush ones, but Redwood city is quite a bit hotter than San Francisco in the summer.

I still think Supersoil gave me good results when I used it in the past. It has sand, but the sand is a good type of grains of sand. The grains are not the kind of tiny grains that get all compact on you, like my sand which is bad sand, that hardens to a Caliche. When this happens the water wonÂt penetrate the soil, it just sits on top of the soil and evaporates. If you try to dig down you will see the plant roots are dry underneath. This encourages shallow rooting of plants. So, thatÂs good sand. Almost no one makes real compost anyway. Whole foods has some compost, but it was just some like pointed pieces of wood without any real deposed material. I would think with all the fruit they donÂt sell because itÂs priced too high, they could make a great compost.

The other book on northern ca, has arrived and I have to pick it up an read it this weekend.