That's what I meant about not enough information --may lead to a host of recommendations, which could be appropriate and inappropriate. Arugula, I suppose I don't know for sure whether your desire to replace lawn is enthusiastic but somewhat naive (at this point) or that of someone who really knows his site, climate, size and condition of space to be planted, f/u maintenance, and can end up with a marvelous lawn alternative (along with that, need to know the various lawn grasses for your area, in that lawn grasses can't all be lumped as higher maintenance, as noted by gottagarden). But your posts sound more like you're just starting to learn about groundcovers and growth habits. So I'd just be cautious about jumping in with a lawn-eradication plan based on what you learn from a few posts here. BTW, replacing lawn with groundcover or other plantings in not naive or wrong in itself at all--it's just that it can be a lot harder to "get it right" than a simple lawn, and so need to go at it--planning, installing, and maintaining-- with more knowledge than a grass-owner may need to know. Plus, there is a lot of "hype" out there currently--magazines go blah blah blah--about how John or Susie replaced all their awful front grass "so we don't have to mow". Most of these spreads are extremely high maintenance. Some of the western/desert xeriscaping, however, is really cool and low-maintenance. Anyway, the hype has led to a lot of posts from beginning gardeners about how they want to go do that tomorrow, all by themselves--hence my being a bit on the alert. So without photos of the area you have in mind, or hearing more experience in your posts, I just think that you may either need some professional on-site input about what are the best options, or may need to do some more legwork yourself. Typical actions that can help are: reading up more on growing conditions, groundcovers, xeriscaping; driving around your area to see if anyone has planted anything remotely like what you're contemplating (obviously, sometimes you can't find it because no one else is brave enough to do something different, but sometimes it's because it isn't that practical), look on the internet and in books for info and photos on groundcovers, lawn-free yards, and so on. If I've misread the situation and/or made things sound overcomplicated (I do tend to be cautious and detailed), then please forgive.

I like it, but I miss the other stuff! Lettuce is good, but I don't have good toms for a salad. I can only eat so much green stuff without the out of season stuff! I love a fresh salad with tomatoes, lettuce, bell and hot peppers, onions, ETC. I wonder when the first salad was made. Greens like lettuce and stuff doesn't produce when tomatoes, pepper and the other stuff in salads produce! The first salad must have came from a weird climate or from someone that could travel long distances before they spoiled! :) Back to the OP, I like the spring better than the fall. After the long cold day's it is refreshing to get out in the warm fresh air and get your hands dirty. In the fall, I'm dreading the cold and working too hard to get prepared for it! I may have a little prejudgment on this since my job is mostly outside work! I'm getting old and I can take the heat much better than the cold!

keen101, > Make sure all chance of frost has passed and that the soil has warmed to around 65 degrees. If the soil is cooler than that, it will affect the germination rate of the seeds. I noticed that if it's too cool when they're planted, fewer (if any) seeds sprout, even when it warms up afterward (although somehow seeds can overwinter and still sprout), when it comes to direct-seeding anyhow. Germination in my unheated greenhouse is great for most varieties, as long as it's not too low below freezing outside for the nightly lows. Watermelon generally germinates better than just about anything in the greenhouse (same for okra). I don't start my seeds indoors anymore. I start them in a 6'x5'x3' Strong Camel greenhouse and then transplant them in the spring. My area isn't as cold as most parts of Idaho in the growing season. We get about four months of hot weather (the last part of May, all of June, July, and August, and maybe half of September are generally quite hot and very dry, especially from late June to mid August, sans when we have thunderstorms in early August or so; early May and late September or onward are generally cooler, and sometimes rainy, though; the frost-free growing season is generally from about May 10th to October 10th, but it varies, of course). Things like Armenian cucumbers, and muskmelons, which love the heat do very well here. I don't have problems germinating watermelons, as long as it's warm enough when I direct-seed them. Direct-seeding can work, here, but I seem to get much better results (as in larger fruit) if the plants are a certain maturity before I transplant them (even if I have to transplant them late). The plants get plenty of light in the greenhouse. We get a lot of sun in my region, if there's no shade. Cold and other outdoor conditions can indeed damage young watermelons. I do believe they should probably be transplanted later than tomatoes (although I need to test that in more contexts). I think it's more due to the fact that they're young than that it's cold, though, but cold seems like it's probably a factor, if not a big factor. Watermelon leaves seem to prefer the kind of light they grew with. If you change that light, it seems to stunt the plant to a degree. This probably isn't going to be a noticeable issue with young plants, since I think young leaves are adaptable, but once they get to a certain size, it seems to be a major issue. I have a hypothesis that removing old leaves (not on young seedlings, but on older plants) can help them quite a bit (and can get around the issues people have with starting watermelons too early, wherein they think it's a taproot issue instead). I plan to test that, this year. I probably won't transplant any watermelons until the end of May or so, this year (in previous years, I tried to do it as soon as possible under milk jugs—I think it's probably a better idea just to wait until milk jugs aren't necessary, even though it seems like you're losing time. Fortunately, we have lots of pollinators here. Our neighbors have beehives. I don't see many at all on the tomatoes, but they seem to like the Russian Sage, cantaloupes, sunflowers, squash, and stuff. They're often on the watermelon, too. I don't know that we have issues with few fruits getting pollinated (although we could probably get more), but some watermelons seem to have incomplete pollination, especially if they're first-year watermelons. I mean, the seeds on the blossom end are often not developed. This can result in smaller, less tasty, fruits. Acclimatization seems to help avoid this, whether or not fruits get larger in following years. I'm not sure that it's the fault of the pollinators; it might be something about the climate. With the exception of Red-seeded Citron and maybe Sugar Baby, I've actually had *much* better results if I water watermelons with an oscillating sprinkler or a shower nozzle than if I just water at the base of the plant. It's interesting how results differ. My main challenges with watermelon have been these: * Fruit size tends to be smaller more often * Spider mites (they're everywhere, I've pretty much resigned myself to adapting the plants to deal with them) * Foliar anthracnose and/or alternaria (theseseem to go hand in hand with the spider mites) * Weeds (particularly tall, weedy grasses) I didn't know you were in more similar circumstances, living in the city limits. I guess I assumed there! Sorry. That's cool. I planted the tomatoes about a foot apart when I did about 105 varieties in 2017. I didn't cage any of them. I made sure to separate the smaller plants I knew about from those that would smother them (due to lots of smothering experience in 2015 and 2016). I had them in a long strip of land instead of something closer to a square-shaped piece of land as I had done with about a hundred varieties in 2016 spaced somewhat further apart (and the long strip made for a better and easier harvest, I think, since more plants were on the border, without tomatoes on all sides). I had watermelons, muskmelons, okra, and a few other things in the square-shaped piece of land in 2017. I'll probably put at least tomatoes and other stuff there, this year, and watermelons in a new spot that hasn't been gardened on much, if at all, before. I'm pretty good at making things fit (not just with plants), if I'm allowed to do it. If it were up to me, I'd want to line the western fence in the backyard with 18-gallon moving totes for plant containers, since mostly just weeds grow there anyway. Stuff I've tried growing in the ground directly next to the fence tends to be smaller than usual. I could probably fit 50-60 of them there, all in a line, and lay a drip irrigation hose over them or something. I could grow a lot of peppers. But, that's me dreaming. I'm not the only one who lives here, and I'm not allowed to do whatever I want, even though I've managed to do some pretty interesting (IMO) things. If I had a big field, and could manage to water it, I'd probably grow tens of thousands of watermelon/muskmelon plants and literally every tomato variety I could find, at least three times (including F2+ hybrids). I'd probably let all the tomatoes reseed, too, as well as plant more, both saved and otherwise, the next year. I really wonder what would have happened had I encouraged all the volunteers these last two years instead of trying to pull them up. They were growing like weeds. I was pulling them up most of the season, last year. They were pretty easy to pull up, but there were lots of them, and they kept coming. I eventually stopped, and some of them set fruit. Letting loads of varieties reseed sounds like it could make for some interesting breeding over time. If I were just breeding, rather than trying to get a harvest, I'd probably direct-seed a lot of them, too, for some reasons.

Very good points gardengal. Thank you! I am one of those wacky gardeners that actually did have my soil tested. I was totally surprised (and elated) at how high my levels were! All except nitrogen. Very low in nitrogen. It could use some phosporus too. But I'm off the charts in potassium and everything else tested. I already added to the soil as directed by the soil analysis. So in my yard the alfalfa is fine for now. And the plan is it will be a source of nitrogen for the rest of my plants when I harvest it (as well as that plant hormone it has that helps growth). That's the plan anyway. We will see what happens. Plus it gives me those happy memories from childhood. We also had hills of mustard flowers growing up. I know it's a weed to most... but to me it smells sweet and happy and looks like spring. I don't even like yellow, but these little weeds hold a special place in my heart. The hills around here are covered in them now with all the rain. I stopped myself from planting a field of them in my yard though. :)