I would dump the gravel and any caliche out, but I would use the native soil in the beds. Mix the native soil with as much compost (50/50 if you can do it) as you can get your hands on, and that should solve your problem. Our soil here is not bad. In fact, it is full of minerals and trace elements. The biggest thing that it is lacking is organic materials (also nitrogen). Due to the lack of rainfall, it is also alkaline as the salts are never flushed out. When you mix the compost and native soil together, it should provide a great environment for your plants. Adding some peat moss (make sure it is THOROUGHLY wet before applying) and some agricultural sulfur will lower the ph enough for your roses to be happy. After you are done, make sure you apply an organic mulch like bark/wood chips and everything should be ready. I don't think dumping out all of the soil and importing soil is necessary or even wise. I like to know the source of where my imported dirt is coming from--it's just me. I don't believe it is necessary because I know that soil can be improved. Good Luck and HTH

Lily of the Valley, Mixed Dutch Irises, Mixed Freesia, Stargazer Lilies, Mixed Platycodons, Calla Lilies, Mixed Lilies, and Mixed Hostas. You have a mix of annual and perennial bulbs here. You don't have to dig anything up now. Let them grow. However, in the fall what you should leave in the ground to come up and flower next season are the perennials : Dutch irises, stargazer lilies, mixed lilies, platycodons, hostas. The freesias and the calla lilies are not going to stand the winter outside, so put them in pots and bring them inside.

How you manage your strawberry plants is up to you and there are several different methods favored by different people. I do think if you cut them back too much at the wrong time, you may negatively impact the plants' performance the following year. I just leave them alone and let them form runners and use the runners to expand the plantings the next year. I'm going to link some info on strawberry growth/management in Oklahoma. The info on plant management is found in the section called "General Care". Some people renovate beds in fall, some in spring. Some people remove all old plants and start fresh every year because they have such persistent plant virus problems. Some grow only in containers. Some keep rooted runners and discard the old 'mother' plants every year. Some use plasticulture and hoop houses to try to prevent all the foliage diseases. (Google Ardmore's Noble Foundation webside for their strawberry studies and projects.) You'll have to choose the method that works best for you in your conditions. If you're in a high humidity area where the plants suffer a lot of disease issues, removing most of the old plant and leaving new rooted runners for the following year may work best. Some people let the runners from this year's mother plants root into the former pathways, and then sever the roots from the mother plants and remove the mother plants, letting this year's bed become next year's pathway and this year's pathway become next year's bed. There's lot of ways to do it. We're still harvsting berries every week from our granddaugher's little strawberry bed in her Peter Rabbit garden, but I'd imagine they're about through producing because there's slightly fewer new berries every week. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Strawberries in Home Gardens in OK

My tomatoes are looking pretty crispy on one side, but they are putting out a big flush of new growth (because I finally broke down and watered them, I guess!) One cuke of three is still going, it got a later start and hasn't had any set yet, so I'm hopeful. My bell peppers have done much better this year than in the last few, but I always got my best production from them in the fall so am hanging on to them. Am thinking about putting some things in for the fall, but my problem is that my only clear row is west of the monster tomato plants so they would not get much sun, but I might do something anyway. Mike, when I was overrun with basil at the end of last season, I picked it all, washed and dried the leaves, and put them in the food processor while adding just a bit of oil to help it mix, stopping and scraping the sides with a spatula and chopping again. Then I spoon into a mini muffin tin (ice cube trays work well, too), drizzled a little more olive oil over the top of each cup, and covered with plastic wrap, patting it down to make complete contact with the surface of each cup, trying to keep the air out (I think the air really discolors it). When it was all frozen hard, I popped them out and have stored them in a freezer ziplock. These are great to add to sauces, soups, pasta, etc, all winter long (in fact, I just used the last few from last year last weekend and now will make more with this season's crop) and if I want to add garlic and nuts to make pesto out of it, I have the option later. If I was more of a pesto lover, I probably would have made it all into pesto and freeze the cubes that way, but I thought this gave me more freedom of choice down the line. I've read a few things about quick blanching the leaves, first, to preserve the green color better, but I didn't get that fancy with it - since I only used them to cook with the darker color didn't bother me, but I might try that with part of the crop this year.