Hi Sdbriggs - Congratulations on starting your first garden! It's great that you are already planning for cover crops. By starting with cover crops your very first year it will put you way ahead of most gardeners. Although Alfalfa is an excellent source of nitrogen, bio mass, and breaks up compacted soil, I would suggest maybe an easier cover to "start out with" than the perennial alfalfa (which is usually turned under in the second season or even the third). There is another annual alfalfa which may be sown in late summer. I think the sowing rate is 1/2lb for 1,000 sq. feet --- so you can see it not cost prohibitive for the home gardener. Buckwheat is a wonderful (and very easy) cover crop that can be sown anytime from spring to about 8 weeks before your first frost/freeze. If you decide on buckwheat sow it a bit dense for full coverage. You can even incorporate it on beds where you have tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cukes, etc. It grows quickly. Once it flowers (but before it sets seed) it is ready to either incorporate into the soil or pull it up and lay it on top the soil with a bit a straw mulch on top. Oats is a great cover crop to plant before cold weather sets in. The growth is lush and gets a foot or so tall. When severe cold comes --- it winter kills and the roots will decay right in the soil. It's one of my favorite covers --- along with buckwheat. You can also sow field peas along with the oats to add more nitrogen to the soil. If they don't winterkill (which they may) they will continue growing next spring and you can pull or turn under. Winter rye -- is a good cover --- BUT --- it is difficult to incorporate by hand --- since the roots will still be strong and hugging the soil firmly the next spring and summer. If you want to see for yourself what winter rye does --- plant only a 3 foot by 3 foot square this year and follow it's growth through to become totally familiar with it. (You don't want to have a struggle on your hands with a cover crop --- especially when you're just getting started.) Putting myself in your position (the best I can) I think I would recommend both buckwheat and oats without hesitation. If you can try both --- do so. It will give you a jump on things. I've written a lot more about cover crops on my site tendingmygarden.com. If you go to the site and do a search (search box on left hand side almost at top) for cover crops --- the first 8 articles that come up are the most relevant to your question. And by the way --- don't miss collecting your leaves. They are one of the best things you can do for your garden. I hope this has been helpful and wish you every success with your new garden! Theresa

Sounds like you've got everything planned correctly. My first frost is around mid-November as well. I put out transplants somewhere between July 4th and 15th. There's not really much you can do about the heat. Some shade the first few days after transplanting can help, but tomatoes need sunlight to grow. The heat shouldn't be too bad for them, other than causing blossom drop. Just keep them watered well and watch out for fungal diseases. Jason

I've had the same problem this year with my basement. For weeks all I could think of was "A River Runs Through It" or "Waterworld". :-) Tomatoes hate being waterlogged. Moreso than most plants. You could always stick your finger (or a stick) in the ground it see if it's soggy down around the roots. Or, if you pull up one of the plants, check to see that the ground is not waterlogged around the roots. If it is, that is likely the problem. I doubt anything leached from the roof into the water and killed the plants. We are down to some of the most likely suspects: 1. Water - way too much or way too little. 2. Herbicides -- either sprayed nearby and drifted unto the plants, or in the manure (or soil, if brought in). However, I would expect to see deformed and stunted foliage prior to death. Looking at the dead leaves, it's hard to detect any distortion in the foliage. The wilting leaves don't look distorted. 3. Disease. There are several diseases that can cause wilting, but disease is not obvious from the photo. Afterthought: Since your sedum looks unhealthy also, did you use cow manure on that too? Many farms use pasture pesticides that pass right through grazers' digestive systems and into the manure unchanged. Then we take the manure, dress our gardens, and it causes our plants to die or at least struggle. When getting manure or soil or compost, it would probably be a good idea to ask which pesticides they are using in their pasture. Then use accordingly. Link to an article below - just in case it applies to your situation (which is hard to discern). Here is a link that might be useful: Herbicide Carryover

I'm just about to do exactly this. I have just turned over the borders of the garden to the council flats I live in. I put lawn clippings under the soil and although the garden was under water until the last hot weather, I found the borders bone dry due to the trees next door. (Cuypressus.) I know it's late but who cares? I've just made a batch of wallpaper paste in a 2L pop bottle to spread the beans with. I can't remember if they are harricourt or naval. But I got them from a supermarket intended for soup etc. I have had no problem germinating packet peas -even after sousing in boiling water with a tablet of bicarb (which loosens the skin on them.) They come up well even in a slug infested garden. Mind you I only planted them for a green manure. They were too hit and miss for a serious crop and not as tasty as they might be. Peas don't come true but revert to any of the varieties that went into their breeding. Seed peas are selected to overcome that problem and that is why they cost so much more. If I had culled them early and eaten them as petit pois or whatever the whole pod is called, it might have been better. They were tasty uncooked. I put these beans in a thermos flask and left them there too long, forgetting they would expand. They all stuck together and I had to scrape them loose with a bread knife. A soup tin full is sitting in the pop bottle beside me as I write. I am waiting for a bit more light in case my neighbours think I'm too wierd going out gardening this early. The mix is made up with two or three soup spoon-fulls of wallpaper paste. Stiff enough to keep them in suspension but sloppy enough to let them pour out. (I hope.) I dare say the blackbirds will get most of them as I just intend to spead them in lines along the back of the border. Some might make it though. I might cover them in some John Innes as I bought a bag cheap (end of season stuff.) I did think about putting them an inch or so under but it is too much trouble. At about a quid for a packet that swells to three times that after soaking for three days, I have a lot of planting to do. I'll let you know how I get on. I have also got a stiffer mix made in a sauce bottle that holds flower seeds. I pushed the plunger out of a mastic cartridge with a long screw driver and the sauce bottle just fills it nicely. I suppose I could have made that a little thinner but it was my first go. I shot it through a couple of times back into the bottle so I know the idea works. If the idea is any good I have a load of seeds to try it on that I bought last week but they looked too fiddly to spread out the way I want. I will mix them all up in the pop bottle and see how broad they cast. Half a litre in the sauce bottle should do about 6 feet I think, so the 2L of flower seed mixed with paste will do most of the border. If it all goes pear shaped don't no one say nothin'.