Good luck with the asparagus bed. Off-topic, some other veggies I've found to be well-adapted in the Valley include Contender bean for early, "beany" green bean fans (spring only - they get fibrous - not stringy - in cool fall weather). Maxibel is the best bush filet I've found for our climate. Romano Gold does surprisingly well for a yellow bean and for a Romano type, up until about the middle of June, with Romanette performing even better for a Romano in hot weather (though not as well as the most heat-tolerant bush varieties). Get it from Crosman Seed Co. Heat-tolerant Brio, Matador or Festina beans are generally good for harvest up to early July (Brio also performs well when planted in August for fall harvest - haven't tried the others then) and I like Black Valentine or Coco Rose de Prague as green or shelly beans in variable fall weather. Fortex pole bean is great when the weather cooperates. Plant some Fordhook 242 or pole limas for fall harvest. They grow well in hot weather, but don't set beans until fall. Much better as green shellies than dried. Cook until soft and add a little butter for luxurious flavor. Edamame soybeans do very well here, and can be "picked" in the hottest summer weather by whacking off whole stems and bringing them inside for preparation. 'Tourth of July' tomato is very early and sweetens during our hot summers when preventing sunscald on the big varieties is a challenge. 'Magda', a Lebanese-style zucchini from France performs extremely well. 'Summer Dance' cucumber from Pinetree stays sweet and productive in summer - never bitter - if grown on a fence. The Italian climbing summer squashes like Zucchetta Rampicante Tromboncino (C. moschata) grow fast enough for a summer shade structure - try growing with one of the Cucuzzi type edible gourds, good barely steamed when young, pared and stuffed when like a baseball bat. Flavors are different from zucchini. The Butternut family of winter squashes (C. moschata) are best adapted here. Try "Tahitian". 'Early Sugarshaw' melon is exceptional here, but you may no longer be able to find seed. Try another Crenshaw, though. Protect ripening melons from sunscald. Banana melon (the orange-fleshed type) is a fun novelty. Most melon varieties do well in the Valley, but watch the Charentais types for cracking - restrict water when ripening even more than for other melons. 'Extra Summer Sweet' is a great little Japanese melon. You might put some in your future asparagus bed this summer. For fall, try pretty little Oasis, Hakeuri or White Lady turnips and big, ugly 'Just Right' for later harvest. All have sweet, flavorful roots and sweet hairless tops with a tough midrib. Turnips are planted commercially in the valley in September, but you could start planting the little "summer turnips" above in late August. 'Gilfeather' turnip/rutabaga is good for storage. Plant some kohlrabi in August or early September, too. For winter harvest, Tatsoi and similar Asian greens are decorative. Tyfon is a sweet, edible cover crop. Also mild Savannah hybrid mustard, the only thing I have had passersby stop and ask to buy from my garden. Bolting of leftover greens and unharvested turnips in late January and February may attract bees to pollenize fruit trees. Have fun gardening. Do you have some favorite Valley varieties? Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Extra Summer Sweet melon

great suggestions, thank you! So it sounds like a lasagna back yard over the winter might be our best bet, since we don't plan to start work till next spring. (It definitely would force us not to put it off another year...). I'm not sure if the city has any restrictions on stuff like that, I know you can get ticketed for letting your grass grow too long without cutting it, but being a back yard and the fact that we ARE doing it as improvement might make a difference. It's a fairly urban area, and while we do compost, it's a small amount in a bin behind the garage, and I'm not sure about composting fresh scraps all over the back yard - I have never seen rats around here, but a friend less than a mile away had them under her deck, and I don't want to encourage a problem, here. Actually, I'm trying to figure out what materials besides newspaper we can get cheaply or free - I'm not a fan of wood chips as mulch, since they don't break down very well. I've used both hardwood and cedar mulch as an overlay, but even that I'm afraid to turn it into the soil too much because there are still big chunkc and I've heard that sucks the nitrogen out. I think you can get compost from the city, but not sure what will be available in Fall. I won't have much in the way of garden clean-up debris, it's a small lot, and my planting areas are fairly small. Plus a lot of that stuff with the tall grasses, lavendar, etc. I leave in place for winter interest and prune back in the spring (unless I'm doing that wrong). So, the idea is - in the Spring there shouldn't be anything left to "peel back" and have to get rid of, it's all decomposed and can get turned in to the soil? And the grass and weeds underneath - they will be dead and we just turn it all in, or pull it out? Maybe that's where the rototiller comes in in the spring?

I put down cardboard (or newspaper at least 6 sheets thick and overlapping) and then mulch over that anytime during the year before the ground freezes. Then in the spring it is good for digging into. I have been doing this for years. I till pretty much the whole garden once a year, usually in spring to incorporate whatever grew and whatever I want to add (not much, usually). I only till about 3" deep, max. I have not had a big problem with weeds because a) I plant rather closely, kind of pushing the envelope in terms of spacing because I want the plants to shade out weeds and lessen the need for mulching and b) I hoe. Hoeing is not at all bad if you have a good hoe. I use a stirrup hoe. I actually enjoy cutting their little heads off.:) I don't use raised beds, either. To me that is just extra work and money. I use regular 4' wide rows with 18" between, each row having a double length of soaker hose. Works good for me, especially because my beds can follow the curves of the sun in my yard instead of being straight, but lots of people love those raised beds. Some people would object to my practice because I don't use a lot of mulch once the stuff is planted. I hoe instead ('dust mulch'). It depends on how much water is in the soil and what is growing there. I have a bed that is pretty dry with no mulch that works well because the plants there like that--they're mostly Artemisias, although I also have a bunch of peppers there that are doing well. Those I have mulched with composted manure. Then I have most of the veggies in beds very thickly planted that get a lot of water and no mulch because they don't need mulch--they create their own shade. I keep the space in between rows very small, like 12"-18". I have also tried living mulches, like letting wild portulaca grow and weeding out everything else in between my tomatoes. This worked pretty well, but I think it was actually more labor intensive than having no mulch at all, because I had to hand pull the weeds instead of hoeing. For watering, I use soaker hoses and water only in the early morning, so it has time to soak in before it gets hot and is wasted in evaporation. Yes, people say you have to cover them. I have never covered them and in my highest watering months I think my water bill has increased maybe five bucks. Covering them for me just gets in the way of hoeing.:) I have clay and I think it is great for growing. Everyone complains about it, but I have gardened in sand and I would take clay any day. Clay has tons of nutrients in it. As long as it doesn't get sopping or get hard on top, it is good to grow in, in my experience. I guess what you can use the city compost for would depend on what it was made of. It must be grass and yard waste, no? It might have broadleaf herbicides in it, which wouldn't be good for your garden. I usually get composted manure instead, although the local prison has a program where they give away compost made out of food scraps. I haven't gotten around to trying that yet, but you might see if your local prison, if you have one, has such a program. I think that would be quite safe and you sure can't beat the price. I know what you mean about next year. I am already planning my next-year garden. Definitely going to be more peppers!

Yep, a long JB season here too. They came a little later this year, sometime after the 4th of July, and I was foolish enough to hope for a good season. But here we are in October and I still found 2 more last night. Possibly due to the extremely mild weather were having. It's more like the beginning of Sept. here. I put down grub control twice this year. Once right after they first appeared, and once again in late August. From what I've read, It only takes about two weeks for the eggs to hatch. So you put down the grub control as soon as you see the adults. Hopefully the larva eat the grub control before they burrow underground in search of turf roots to eat, and make their home for the winter. I re-applied about 6 weeks later because there were still a lot of beetles breeding, and I doubt the initial application would still be effective, especially after all the flooding we had in late August. Spraying Cyfluthrin or Permethrin and the like will do nothing to prevent them from coming back, and kills everything else in sight as well. Last year I used to take a lot of satisfaction in squishing them one one by one as I found them in the flowers. Then I worried about releasing a scent that would attract others. So now instead of torturing them, I take them for a nice swim with some of their friends in a bucket of soapy water. Very effective. What I've discovered in doing this is, their main strategy of escape when disturbed is instead of flying off, they tend to drop to the ground. So all you have to do is hold your bucket under the bloom, and say BOO!. They are so stupid! And it's fun to watch them swim. Mike