You could try to stretch a bit of shade cloth over the beds, but I'm at the same latitude and don't need anything like that when the plants are watered correctly. With a good soil mix, the plants have a much easier time maintaining access to enough water.

Is there a branch of Living Earth in Austin to use a a source for bed fill, a bulk potting mix with an extra 1/3-1/2 compost would be a quick way to approximate the "ideal" bed fill. There is a FAQ entry on finding bed fill that you might want to look at as well.

I'm not going to be much help on the companion planting question. Also, "how many" requires a lot more data about your diet and experimentation with which varieties work best for you, but if just wanting salad cukes a few vines of a burpless variety should come pretty close to what you will need.

JM,

I'm in my second summer of gardening here in Austin, and started out trying the SFG approach.

The big thing I'd say, and I harp on it a lot here, is forget entirely about the peat in your mix. My experience last year was that once we got over 100 and it got harder and harder to keep everything soaked, that peat dries out and is really hard to get wet again.

If I were starting out now, I would actually try to use more of our native clay soil in my mix. I know that kind of goes against one of the SFG basics, but most gardens do just fine with 80-90% dirt. I would think even 25% would do wonders for moisture retention and necessary minerals without hurting your drainage too much.

And be sure to mulch -- I use shredded leaves and grass clippings -- to keep the summer sun from baking all the water away. I used drip irrigation last year and found that it didn't get much of the bed wet. I'm trying soaker hoses this year.

As for keeping your plants cool, I think you might lose most of your water to evaporation with misters. I found that as long as you keep everything sufficiently watered, the plants may wilt in the heat of the day, but will perk right back up in the evening. However, everything does start looking pretty worn out by mid-August and sunscald on any exposed tomatoes is a problem, so shade cloth might be a good plan.

I filled my beds with compost from big box stores before I had my own compost pile going. You can might do better buying compost in bulk from a landscaper or nursery. I'm a fan of the Natural Gardener, out toward Oak Hill, and they make some good stuff.

You can also use shredded leaves or grass clippings to get more organic matter into your mix for free. Check out the compost and mulch forum and look up "lasagna gardening" for a lot more ideas.

Hope this helps,

Kelly

Thanks for the replies, before I wrote my original post, I emailed the sfg site for info and she forwarded my email to Tom Harris, he is the certified SFG guy in San Antonio. He told me to use two parts compost, one part peat moss and one part vermiculite or perlite. I guess I should also really mulch it good.
As for the misters, I would not be trying to wet the leaves, I was under the impression that a mister just cooled the air down about 10 degrees, is that not really true?

Misters only work for cooling below a certain % humidity. I know Austin is drier than here, but I'm kinda "eh" on the idea. I'm thinking a drip irrigation system would do you more good for the same investment (and with better water conservation too).

MULCH,MULCH,MULCH. BILL

One more suggestion (This will be my tenth year running a veggie garden - one foot in square foot, one foot in more traditinal bio-intensive - in North Austin). What I have realized is that you just can't prepare your soil and mulch in the spring and expect good results.

Every two to three weeks through out the growing season, you will need to check to see if you need to feed in more soil and mulch. For example, I just remulched a bed that was mulched a month ago and I have another bed that will need more compost before the end of the month - it was readied in March. Unfortunately, our heat and thin soil means your beds break down very, very quickly - you will need to continously add organic material (leaves, hay, grass,compost,etc) to act as a sponge to hold the water. And you will need to keep your mulch to about 2 inches to lock down evaporation.

Also, if you have a bed that does get too dry, don't immediately soak it. Water it gently, wait 10 to 15 minutes, then try soaking the bed - you will find the soil will asorb the water better. Really, really dry soil can be treated with a few drops of dishsoap to a gallon of water.

hope that helps!

I second two recommendations from Kelly...one is giving your garden a quick (and easier!) start by getting some garden fill from The Natural Gardener in Oak Hill. They sell different mixes and composts, etc. in bulk and it's quite reasonably priced. Their "hill country garden soil" is wonderful to work with in veggie gardens, perennial beds, rose beds, etc. (though they do make a specific rose mix.) The second suggestion is that if I'd change anything about it, I'd add more clay-like dirt to help hold water....though now that the beds have been in a while and settled, I am finding they hold water much better than I initially thought. Mixing in more straight compost at the time of filling should also help water-holding capacity but as I said I may be finding out that their hill country mix is pretty perfect just as is. I did (and will continue to) top dress with compost. Anyway, it's good stuff, rich and drains well and everything I've planted in it so far has just taken off.