I am with you, I hate that Bermuda grass! Working in sections is the easiest and most organized way to do it. You can further break it down to crops. Work up a space, plant corn; work a space, plant tomatoes in next row, then on to plant squash in opposite end of section. You don't have to do the whole thing at once. As for the weeds, especially the Bermuda grass, there are remedies out there. For grass, there is Ornamec, a chemical which can be sprayed on the grass to kill it, but it will not harm your plants. As long as you are not spraying it on the fruit, I wouldn't worry about it. I don't spray it on or around peppers or tomatoes when they have set fruit. You may have to spray it more than once, but it will kill it. You might want to treat the unworked areas with RoundUp while they are awaiting the time that you have time and energy to work in them. Just don't cultivate the soil and chop the bermuda into pieces. Every node will become a new plant. Another thing that surprised me was the mention of 80 tomato plants. How many people are you gardening for? Is this a truck farm? Goodness! that is a lot of tomato plants! I just have me and DH, and friends and neighbors to share with, and I have 20 plants, of several different varieties. I like to have plenty to give away, but I have to be able to take care of them. Maybe if you want to can or freeze them for the tomato-less times, you could grow a few determinate vines, where all the produce comes at once, and a few indeterminate vines for table use and to give away. The indeterminate vines will just go on and on making tomatoes until night temps get so hot that they won't set fruit any longer. You could install 3 metal fence posts and string some re-inforcement wire on them to make a trellis for the tomatoes. Plant the tomatoes along the trellis, and it is easy to come along and tie them up as they grow. Much easier than tomato cages, and less expensive. Next year, grow beans in this spot. Or cucumbers... An absence of light will help you stay free of weeds, so if you lay thick layers of wet newspaper, and cover it with a thick layer of mulch, it will help you a lot in your maintenance work. I used to mulch my pathways, but now I just use a weed whacker on the pathways. I save my energy for the growing areas. Don't forget to throw a few flower seeds in your garden, too. Maybe some cosmos or some zinnia. Nothing nicer than having pretty flowers to cut for the table. I have Laura Bush petunias in my herb bed, and they reseed every year. It is so easy when they do the work for you. I wish you much luck in your garden, and endless fun and enjoyment. That is what a vegetable garden is supposed to be, I think. Work, yes, but so much satisfaction! Janie

We stopped cultivating the soil (or at least most of us did) because we figured out that every time the soil is turned, new weed seed are exposed. Roses need mulch. Not as much as for keeping down weeds but for conserving moisture in the soil and (eventually) providing organic matter as it decomposes. Jim, as far as canker, you are thinking about "winter protection mulch", the kind people pile ON TOP their roses to keep them insulated in the winter, not the kind of mulch that goes on top the soil. Some people have said that bark or leaf mulch piled up onto the rose canes can cause canker, but this is not the case with mulching a rose bed. I use a pretty thick layer of newspaper + shredded leaf mulch. If I didn't have the shredded leaves I would buy bark mulch (the black or brown stuff, not the red stuff). That's great that you enjoy turning the soil to control weeds vs. hand-picking, but your roses need mulch.

Carlos, we used to have a tremendous problem with squirrels in our yard. We have a huge oak tree on one side of it, the largest in the neighborhood, so it was like a magnet to them. We'd only lived in this house a few months (we've been here about 1-1/2 years now) before I decided it was the squirrels or me. The battle began. After lots of tries with different strategies, we've finally got no squirrel population in our yard at all. They're in the neighboring areas, but they don't wander over here anymore. First, we pulled all the squirrel nests down from the oak tree. Second, we spread cayenne pepper all over the areas where they were digging. They do not like the taste of the cayenne at all!!! Cayenne is pretty cheap too, and can be purchased in the huge size bottles at Sam's or Costco. Third, we put fox urine on the entry points they frequented (like where the limbs from neighbors come close to the fence, etc.). It's been over a year now since I've seen a squirrel in the yard. Good luck! =)

Many local plantings and wild populations of salal acceptable in appearance. I notice heavy mildew on it here and there, and I do not so far see obvious fatal or otherwise spoiling levels of it - unlike with the rhododendron mildew, which has been actually killing some varieties here for some years now. Of course, with the rhododendrons I am looking at individual specimens rather than sometimes quite large patches. With any and all plantings of the highly popular heath family plants such as these you have to provide their particular soil and exposure needs, and pests and diseases may appear and have to be dealt with. With many local plantings the soil is too hot, dry (in summer) or heavy for best results (or even long term survival) of this group. With natively occurring salal (and coast rhododendron, in those scattered districts where it is present as a wild plant) you can actually tell what the soil is generally like on a site (or a situation, like the top of a rotting stump) because these plants are able to grow on it.