We eat and plants need to also. It's amazing how many people choose not to feed their veggies. To each his own, but if you don't feed them it's usually half the crop. After you have your plants properly spaced, planted and mulched to control the weeds and keep the soil cool, it's time to feed.

I use man made fertilizer(Harrell's 17-6-12with minor nutrients) because I only have to put it on once for the whole growing s a son. Easy.

We also sell organic fertilizer.

​Whatever you use, put it on now.

Like I said, put the garden in full sun and close to the house. Couldn't get closer than this. Great soil (it's all about the soil) and really convenient. Now we gotta fence it in which I think is certainly a must even for small gardens. We planted strawberries on the top of a wall where the damn chipmunks won't get to them unless they rapelle down the wall. Chipmunks eat only half of each strawberry, usually the side you can't see so you end up reaching for each one thinking it's not eaten and after you pull it off the plant your fingertips squish into disgusting strawberry/chipmunk spit. Each one. Dangling off the stone retaining wall is an answer to the chipmunk problem. So is a have a heart trap where you put a spoonful of peanut butter on the plate and then sit back and watch the little guys fall for it each time. You then decide if you want to drive 500 miles and let them go in a state park or if you want to do you know what to them. For anyone wanting to do you know what to them, it only takes seven vigorous shakes of the have a heart trap to end the relationship.

Back to gardening.

Weeds: IMMEDIATELY after planting, I have to feed the little guys and mulch them with old leaves and or grass clippings from a no- herbicide and no-insecticide lawn. There is no such thing as bare soil in nature so mimick nature and mulch the plants somehow. Feed them with our Harrell's long lasting fertilizer or our organic food.

Im hoping these blogs help people by downloading 41 years of experience into newcomer's heads so outdoor projects are more successful. Home Depot- type stores sell annuals way before the frost date, old fashioned places like ours don't, most of us wait till frost danger is in the past. Last night we had a frost and any annuals or hanging baskets you stuck outside might have been killed or burned back, depending on where you live and microclimate effects.