Hi all, I started rebuilding my beds this weekend and actually remembered to take a few pictures. This is the original layout - four beds, each almost exactly 3 feet wide and about 15 feet long. The sides are one 2x6 high. Katja is helping. The boards have all been removed. So, in place of the current setup there will be 3 beds that are four feet wide apiece, with another level of 2x6 in height, and more heavily planted than before. Pretty much everything I've read on this and other sites says the new layout will work well, so I'm optimistic. I'll update with a few more pics when I get the new beds built and in place. Hey lantanascape (and anyone else who wants to weigh in), Thanks for your info. So, just to clarify on the planting plan you posted, all the X's in your plan would represent pepper plants? So you're saying that, on average, you'd be successful with 14 pepper plants in a given 4x4 plot of planting area? And you would have carrots or lettuce in between them? This is fascinating to me and I'm excited to give some of these techniques a try - I'm just wondering how, in your example, the sun is supposed to get to the shorter plants once the peppers start to grow up? Also, would you plant tomatoes with the same spacing or spread them out a little? Thanks again for the info and these forums. They're great. - Chris

Hi all - just thought I'd toss in that we purchased a big sheet of heavy fabric 15 years ago from a professional company that lays it on hillsides to prevent erosion. I cut it in strips - narrow ones about 12" and wider ones about 18". After we till in the spring, we roll them down in whatever arrangement works for the season - use the wider ones for the main paths and between the tomatoes and the narrow ones between smaller crops. Then we mulch the dirt areas between the plantings with layers of newspaper, lay soaker hoses on top, and cover the entire thing including the paths with straw. Once it's done it really is pretty much done for the season. We don't do the sweet corn and we have a huge huge area of it (I argue with my husband about this annually) so it generally gets weedy even with tilling with the Mantis between the rows a few times but the rest stays very nice. In the fall we roll up the fabric and just stack it in the corner and the remainder of the straw and newspaper gets tilled in with compost the following spring. It actually works extremely well. I will have to snap some pics later.

Yeah, you have some nutritional deficiencies going on, and it does look like it comes back to the soil being too moist for too long. There are at least 2 major impacts of an over-abundance of rain and moisture... First, rain will leach out available nutrients. Even if your soil is rich, and can recover, it takes time for the bio-activity in the soil to convert the nutrient sources to available forms. Blended mixes, like you describe, may or may not have a good store houses of slow-release resources from which to draw. Often, the only thing to do is add a readily available fertilizer. The quickest acting are synthetic soluble products like Miracle Gro. There are soluble organics if you prefer. They are a bit tougher to find, but even a simple fish emulsion, or liquid kelp will do for the short term. Longer term, any of your preferred fertilizer side or top dressed will work. The other problem with too much moisture is a lack of oxygen in the soil. I think you have a combination of the 2 problems. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do for the air - maybe a little surface cultivation - but if you had a good mix from the beginning, once the rains slow a bit, you should see a little improvement once the fertilizer situation is fixed. Sometimes it's just a fact of gardening life... good years and bad. If those plants are slow to recover, it's not too late to put in some more zucchini and beans, but I'm not sure your climate offers enough summer days for tomatoes to be sown now and produce enough. Tomatoes though, are pretty good about bouncing back once conditions become more favorable.

I looked up my notes on blight/septoria. "List of plants affected by Late Blight Tomatoes Potatoes Egg Plant Tomatillo pear melon possibly tobacco...consider removing this one Flower hosts Petunia Calibrachoa morning glories Weeds affected bittersweet nightshade hairy nightshade eastern black nightshade silver leaf nightshade golden henbane horse nettle (Carolina horse nettle) jimson weed sacred thorn-apple yellow and purple nutsedges bindweed pigweeds" Also my notes say that seeds won't carry the problem over winter and tools and cages etc won't carry the problem through freezing temperatures. This info comes from multiple sources and some even I question, like the seeds and tools. And the tools would have to be stored in freezing temps.