my soil is not really sandy but i would say about 50% sand. the weeds seem to love it but the grass dose not. oh well just means i have a dirt yard with 2 white dogs that are never white. when i orginaly tilled the 20X 20 area i put in 10 bags of the organic mulch. and thin sprinkled a cup of the organic blood meal around the 20x20 area.. i then planted and dug iragation so as not to spray water on the leaves. and poked holes in down below the roots so the water could get down there and minamising the watering i have to do. its worked great so far. i guess i just need to ad some pots and phos to the soil. and be cadful beacuse of the holes i have to the roots or i could burn them. and test the soil. thanks again for all your help.... next year i'm going to do things diffrent extending the garden 30x30 make it lazania type layered thing. and see how that works. of course the ball and chain will just be oh look at how nice it is i cant belive we did all of that sitting in her chair drinking her beer while i'm doing all of the work... oh well

I'll have to look. For years I thought I wouldn't like basil because I don't like licorice and basil smells a bit like it. Then 5 years ago a new gardening friend laughed when I said that and said "I know you love cilantro in fresh salsa but you said you think it smells like a stink bug in the garden. Let me make you some pesto." I love pesto, have son buy pine nuts by the pound bag at costco and mail them to me and freeze pesto during the summer but never enough. In fact right before I sat down at the computer I took a half cup out of the freezer to thaw. I just use it as a dip with tortilla chips.

Newspaper is fine either shredded or used in multiple sheets overlapped in the lay out. Some pre-soak 4-5 sheets at a time, lay them out and then overlap them with the next 4-5 sheets. It's easier to get them wet before laying them down than after. Wood chip mulches don't generally belong in vegetable gardens as they can cause nitrogen binding issues. You'll find many discussions about this problem over on the Soil & Mulch forum. If you choose to use the cypress then as Bill suggested, it really needs to be raked aside and removed at seasons end, NOT tilled in. There are many really great veggie garden mulches available that not only keep down weeds but also improve the soil at the same time and any one of them is far better than any wood chip mulch - straw, hay, compost, leaf mold, chopped fall leaves, grass clippings, etc. Consider using your newspaper topped with one of them instead and save the cedar mulch for its purpose - decorative mulching in a flower bed. Dave

westchestergrower, I'm very sorry my naivete has offended you..... and no, I'm not personally offended, in fact I understand you perfectly. Until about 6-8 weeks ago, I had no clue what it ment to grow anything, much less tomatoes. The only tomatoes I've ever seen growing in my life are the ones at a neighboring fruitstand (I'm a city girl, recently transplanted) - his plants are 3-4 feet tall, have 2-3 stems, green as all get-out and have more tomatoes than leaves. That's what I thought tomatoes do. I had no clue they grow in excess of 8' tall, or turn into amazon-like jungles, or are on the dinner menu of just about every pest, bacteria and fungus imaginable. I never envisioned the range of tomato plagues could be as numerous as there are varieties of tomatoes themselves. I also had no idea what a home grown tomato tasted like. Or the pride associated with watching your own dinner grow.... sinking your hands into the dirt, and having the ability to better your plant. Or the utter confusion facing the myriad of voodoo and hocus pocus to wade through in an effort to discover what 'works for you'. (I can't explain how hard it is for me to 'experiment' on my poor plants, wondering what I'm going to find the next morning) And finally, I certainly did not anticipate the enormous and dedicated following of tomato growers and lovers. The art of 'tomatoing' is like nothing I'd anticipated.... its vastness rivals other endeavors of mine like flyfishing and horsemanship. I'm frustrated, confused, embarrassed, enthralled, proud and determined all at the same time. I simply went to home depot, bought a couple of plants and put them in the ground. I never would have dreamed it would develop into an obsession. But obsession it is, which is why I completely understand and respect your comment. Please understand, I literally loose sleep over these plants. I've spent hours upon hours researching and trying to learn. I drive everyone in my life nuts. I've cancelled dinner dates just so I can get back and check on them (I don't currently live at their location, and go days without seeing them some weeks). I'vw skipped meetings at work, just so I could badger the kind folks at the local extension office. From what I'm learning my plants are fairly robust, but they're also struggling and its all my fault. The front looks bushy and green, but inside, its a dying yellow mess. The photos simply don't do the damage justice. Plant after plant is cracking and falling down. The entire grape jungle has collapsed upon itself and the middle is rotting out. The potted plants are in a constant state of having too much or too little water. I'm typically a glass-half-full kinda person... and I really should cut myself some slack here too... but like I'm sure you're well familiar with, after so much time, effort, care and dedication, watching the entire back half of your crop disintegrate and die before your very eyes, and having no knowledge of what to do about it is supremely frustrating and in my naive mind constitutes a 'disaster'. For some reason, I can't see the loads and loads of tomatoes, I see broken trusses and snipped stems. Like I said, I really should cut myself some slack, and apparently be pleased with what I have... but I've got the gardening bug bad now, and I've made so many stupid regrettable mistakes, I just want to start over. I thank you for your comment. I will be wiser in the future thanks to you. Thanks all for this forum as well, its been the best source of help I've found and everyone is welcoming and kind. Be well - Buck