New to gardening and need help

[redback]

I meant to add that you can grow a green manure crop. Just buy some cheap mixed seed (like bird seed, peas, mustard, soy beans) broadcast it over all the beds after topping them with manure and rake the seed in roughly. Once it grows to six inches high fork it in. You will have to water it every day to germinate it. It will go a long way to improving the soil because it supplies organic matter and 'granulates' the soil making it more friable, better drained and more water retentive.

 

[im1085]

Well done.
I'm Australian so go to the organic topic below and ask for advice on the best soil for Californian home gardeners. There is a landscape supplies place 15 minutes' drive away and I just phone them up and ask the blokes I know there to deliver 5 cubic yards of manure. That is delivered within a day and tipped in my drive. It's an eight-foot circle of manure about four foot high so you need a driveway to leave it on for about four weeks whilst you wheelbarrow it to your beds.
BTW you need a wheelbarrow, spade, rake and fork to start with.
I dump the manure, undiluted, as a three-inch-high topping to all my beds. I leave it there until the rain comes and softens the soil below and then fork it in as I need the bed. Soil is the most important part of gardening so you will be adding compost, leaf mulch, micronutrients, worm wee, fish emulsion and all the organic fertilizers to the soil as time goes by.
As for the tomato and strawberries you have already planted - I would build up a collar of the fertilizer (above) around the neck of the tomato and pepper. I would build the strawberry mound as well and transplant the strawbs into the mound remembering to keep the crown clear of the soil.
Then I would contemplate what else to plant in conjunction with the cook (if that's not you).
Late summer plants (no frosts, harvest to march /april) - potatoes, onion, garlic, leek, beans, carrots, turnips, radish, beets, lettuces, basil, thyme, oregano, fennel, dill, and more. Choose the ones with shortest growing season and some that are all season plants like carrot and lettuce.
Tomatoes, corn, strawbs are the vegetables that taste most like cardboard when shop bought so they are worth growing at home.
Good luck and keep us posted.

Sounds like a great jumping off point for me to get this garden started for reals. Huge thanks for all the info

 

[redback]

Where it says - 'Late summer crops harvest March/ April' - make that 'harvest Sept,/Oct."
It's difficult to remember I'm talking to the northern hemisphere.

 

[redback]

In that list of late summer crops I included basil. I think basil and pesto are THE taste of summer. If you agree you will have to buy an advanced seedling of basil and plant right away. Spoil it with water and diluted fertilizer in the hope of tasting your own fresh basil and pesto. Basil is a sun lover so give it the warmest spot available.

 

[headfullofbees]

STOP WATERING SO MUCH, IT'S KILLING YOUR PLANTS!!!!
Water twice a week at most, even in dry spells, to allow any plants whose roots have not completely rotted away, have any sort of chance.
I think it's too late for most of them, especially that pepper plant.

DON'T remove any leaves at this stage & hope they will transpire some of that water away.

 

[Avocado]

Your tomatoes need cages or poles to support them. Otherwise, when they start fruiting, your tomato plants will be on the ground.