2006 in a nutshell

thats right, my garden layed unattended from january 2006 until spring 2008. well, for the most part.

2006 saw my first attempt at growing tomatoes in my future garden area. i wanted to test the area and see what it could do. i had good luck in cameron park and figured diamond springs wouldnt be an issue.

wrong!

as previously mentioned, the soil in diamond springs is whitish, porous and of volcanic origin. its pretty porous, easy digging in the winter, hard as concrete in the summer. undaunted, i planted my first 6 tomato plants in the new garden in may 2006. i used the existing soil, with no amendments. i wanted to see what the soil could do and boy was i disappointed.

i approached the watering like i did at the old house, about 2 times a week with heavy deep watering. turned out to be grossly insufficient for the type of soil i was dealing with at the new house. 2006 turned out to be a learning curve year for me - it also got me thinking what i could do to improve my future garden - hauling in tons of amendments to fix the soil that was there, was not an appealing solution. i needed to noodle on a feasible fix for my poor soil conditions.