What a great way to use your yard. I too think edibles should don all our landscapes. If you remove all your bushes for a summer garden, the area will look a bit bare when the weather gets cold. Have you thought of replacing a couple bushes with rosemary, oregano, bay tree, and thyme? All culinary and I can't live without them. They'll add winter interest and are not big nutrient feeders. In my zone, peas, carrots, and radishes are cool weather plants and can often succession-plant with the warm weather ones- tomatoes, peppers, etc. Although, perhaps this is different for Buffalo. As for the plastic, it's going to be a real mess to try to reuse what's there. Have you thought about just leaving it and poking new holes for your vegetable plants? The only problem with that is you'll have an irrigation problem if it isn't already set up with one since plastic is also a water barrier. I use wood chips regularly in my vegetable bed. Yes, nitrogen buildup will be a problem, but there's always lime. I have to use it to keep my dog and squirrels from digging in it. My digger dog doesn't like how it feels on his paws. Soil tests are used to understand not only the make up of the soil, but what it is missing for particular crops. If NY is like NC, your taxes pay for these tests. All you have to do is collect the sample, fill out the sheet form, and send it in. No additional fee. This was also true in Oklahoma when I lived there. You'll get a report back telling what you need to add for your vegetable garden. Ask your local garden center for the forms. Or call the extension office, especially since it is a county service through your extension office. (Big box store employees will look at you like you're from Mars if you ask them.) I am a big proponent of compost (veg matter, manure, etc.). I don't use commercial fertilizers as the risk of laying on too much and harming the environment is too great. Besides, what else am I going to do with those apple cores? Best of luck! And show us pics as the season progresses! Erin

oops, never noticed that the pic for the cosmos psyche didn't go through correctly. sorry about that but here is the cosmos psyche Northerner, I surprised that your double click are only about 18 inches tall. It's supposed to grow to 4 feet. I had some last year and they did get that tall. I wasn't impressed with them so traded the seeds from that last fall and didn't grow them this year. Finally figured out what the orange and yellow cosmos is. It's cosmos diablo and I forgot that I had WS those seeds this year. Just have no idea what the orange ones are and the red one. I didnt' have those last year and only sowed seeds that I saved of gazebo lavender sonata fushia psyche white candystripe picotee diablo gloria sonata lavender daydream seashells white seashells pink pied piper versailles red sonata white so where it came from, the red is beyond me. I have no idea what that little white and purple petunia is either. I only know that the seeds came from a very dark purple petunia and or a very pale pink petunia that my neighbor purchased just before a local nursery closed for the month of August. She couldn't say no to the price and she planted them all in one pot. So the seeds where a mix. I have a string around the flower so that I can save seeds from it and not mix them up with the other seeds. Highaltransplanter, my plants are huge, but the toms are still small. Last year some of my cherokee purple did crack on the top but they still tasted wonderful, wouldn't be without them. The extremes in weather temps and water can cause toms to crack, but to me that is part of growing your won tomatoes in the garden and enjoying them. Tiny tim has a sweet but a bit tart flavor to it, and I didn't find the toms that small when ripe, about the size of a sweet 100. My 25 year old daughter likes them better than the sweet 100. I never heard of the mini bush yellow cherry and couldn't find much about it when i did a search. sounds interesting though and one I would like to try as well. I should have plenty of saved seeds from the tiny tim and my other toms for trades in the fall. Angie, thanks for the complement, not sure I would say I am an awesome gardener though. Some of my plants are about as sick looking as you can get and not sure why. Some has to do with the craziest weather I have seen in my life. At the moment the news and weather people are telling me that more rain has fallen in the month of July where I live than has fallen since the 1920's. Gee, didn't need to make me feel worse about the weather and all the rain than I already do. And the severe thunderstorms that have moved through on almost a daily basis for almost 2 weeks has been unreal. But that's the life of a gardener. Some years are better than others and it's either feast or famine when it comes to good weather. A pic of one of the storms that went through about 2 weeks ago, taken from the back door. No, I don't live in the tropics or a tropical rain forest. I live in a suburb northwest of Boston MA.

Thanks everyone. You would think I would keep the weight off with 2.5 acres to take care of and me doing most of the work but not so. I am planting 6 tomatoes, 3 different kinds that grow in the fog belt of the CA coast. Sweet pepper called Banana pepper. And a new squash called Banana squash, never had it before. I always like to try something new. I have rhubarb, globe aritichoke, beets, romaine lettuce, carrots, onions and chives already up. I will be planting Jerusalem artichoke, peas, carrots, parsnips, butter lettuce, garlic, green onions, Italian green beans, kolhrabi, summer yellow squash, winter squash - Lakota, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, and Turbin. Heat loving plants don't do as well because we get a lot of fog in the summer so gave up on eggplant, cukes and melons. How is everyone else's garden doing? Clare

Sammy, again, thank you for your compliments. I guess the most important thing in becoming a good gardener, is to be observant, and learn what each plant likes and doesn't like, learn all you can from books, from fellow gardeners in your area, and be glad for the things that didn't work out because they teach you valuable lessons. You are right when you say it is a learning process....you learn what plants do well in different micro climates in your yard, which ones do best in sun, despite the label and book recommendations, because you live in the northeast. My Actaea (formally Cimicifuga)) is a good example....everything you read says shade for these plants....mine languished until I moved it into sun, just to see what it would do, and it thrived! Just make sure it is mulched and the soil never dries out...that's the important part, not being in shade. The same with Astilbes.....the further north you are, the more sun they can take, just keep the soil moist, and mulch! As far a maintenance goes, I have put more effort in reducing the maintenance needed throughout the growing season by putting more effort in in the beginning of the season. Get out in the garden early and clean up any debris from last years garden. Refresh mulch or put down mulch around your plants to keep weeds down and soil cool and moist. If the garden is mature and plants cover all the soil, less of that is needed, but make sure to pull any weeds early before your plants fully leaf out. There are areas that I wait to mulch until I see what seedlings come up that I want to continue, like the Cleome, Poppies, Feverfew, Coneflower.....then I decide where I want them and get rid of the rest with a scuffle hoe. Once they are getting to be a good size, I mulch around them. The nice thing about these raised beds is the grass/lawn never encroaches into them...but grass seedlings and weeds do, especially in the paths. I just put down thick layers of wet newspaper right over them, and put my mulch over that...thicker in the paths, thinner in the beds. For the beds that do border lawns, I dig a trench to edge it, once in Spring and then neaten it up again mid summer. I am pretty much out there every day doing some kind of neatening up, trimming, transplanting, watering containers...my favorite summer activity. And don't be afraid to cut back overzealous plants that are crowding out their neighbors, cut back any plants done blooming or looking scraggly. Oh, and THE most important part of having a good garden is of course the soil....we make tons of compost from hay, goat and chicken manure, leaves, garden clippings and use it liberally. Know the soil requirements of your plants...do they like it fast draining and dry? Heavy and moisture retentive? If you don't know, look it up, books, Google, Gardenweb! There is so much more I could go on about, but I think I'll stop here....glad to answer any questions....