If the soil is as bad as you say, I would go to raised beds and have good top soil delivered. I understand that you are renting and don't want to make permanent improvements, but drip systems are not expensive or permanent and with the cost and availability of irrigation water, are worth the expense. Al

Lots of compost should make a huge difference. The key is to till it in, then use more as a thick mulch. It takes a few seasons before the soil is really improved though.

And try to avoid overhead watering for anything other than your lawn (i.e. sprinkers should not be hitting veggies and most other plants). Leaving water on the foliage gives fungus/blight a chance to take hold. A soaker hose would be ideal IMO.

Yes, we have no winter. Consider this spring. I am already sprouting my summer garden seeds outside, so that I can get them in the ground by March latest. I began my winter seeds in august directly in the ground and I am harvesting brocolli, lettuce, and my peas are starting to form pods.

For us and probably for you, the issue is not only the high heat as the fact that it is soooo dry all year. I have to supplement watering constantly. You also may want to consider several half wine barrels or large containers. Raised beds would be great, just make a square or rectangle from 2x6, redwood if you can, and then fill with 1/2 topsoil and 1/2 compost. Should work great. I have terribly rocky soil and very small area, so I just dumped a few bags of Amend on the top of the soil to about 6" deep, didn't even work it in, and just grow the veggies in the top 6". Of course it decomposes and works its way into the soil over time. I just add more amend every season. Also, it is absolutely key that you get your plants in the ground in early March to give them at least a couple of months to get the roots down deep before the heat hits.

I'm in Simi, with a similar climate, and I feel your pain! Some years things just don't grow well. This year we had trouble with the tomatoes and the cucumbers. I think the timing of the heat spell in May was part of the problem.

That said, I vote for raised beds.

I think redwood is too expensive for a rental. We used recycled pine 2x4s and 2x6s in four-foot squares. With five of them, we grow enough tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers and squash for ourselves and our extended families each summer. We buy started plants for the summer crops so that a heat wave or a late frost does not get them, and like gardenerme, we plant in mid-March. In the winter we grow lettuce, radishes, snow peas and sugar snaps from seed sown in the ground in the fall.

We use one bed as a compost bin and the other four for planting, and rotate the crops. That way we don't have to spend as much money on amendments. Once a year we buy four bags of cheap steer manure, and that's it. You can start composting in your beds now for planting in mid-March.

I think the tomatoes do best if they can grow deep roots, so whichever bed you plant them in it is wise to dig a deep hole and fill it with amended soil.

I hand-water everything (except the tomatoes) two to three times a week in the summer, depending on the heat. The tomatoes get less water- once a week, deep. We don't use fertilizer.

Good luck this year!
Renee

I also agree about the raised beds. We've had great success following the ideas in "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew.

Thank you all so much! Keep the suggestions coming, but it's nice to know others out there feel my pain...misery loves company I suppose! =) But truly, thanks for the suggestions. I always feel like planting in February is crazy, but if I don't, everything's dead in July...ah, sunny California.

Hi !

Don't forget the wonderful book about California Gardening:
52 WEEKS IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN - ROBET SMAUS. Has helped me tremendously! Good luck!

I couldn't live without a garden and the joy and pleasure it brings. But I, for one, am not into improving to any great extent the land of a landowner unless you're going to get a break in the rent, or some other type of compensation for the hard work and money you might spend. You need to do what you feel the need to do, but you mentioned a limited budget and that immediately made me think of Earth Boxes, or in my case, building your own Earth Boxes. http://www.josho.com/gardening.htm

Clint

Raised beds are great but not in hot dry climates (they dry out even faster). Below is a link to a website that you may get ideas from, the farm is in Fresno, hot and dry. A good book I might recommend is Steve Solomon's Gardening When It Counts. Also Tony Kienitz' The Year I Ate My Yard (his yard is in Pasadena).

If it were my yard, tomorrow I would go to a local stable and ask for manure (LA Equestrian Center will even load it in your pickup truck bed for $20, manure is free) and distribute that evenly over the backyard (and front if you have time). Then harvest neighbors' bagged up leaves they are disposing of. Ask the gardeners to leave lawn clippings for you in your front yard, leave 5 gal. buckets at Starbucks to collect the coffee grounds etc. No need to spend much if any money on any of this. The worms and microorganisms will till for you, if you break the ground you lose nitrogen and carbon to the atmosphere so don't bother. Mulch composts in contact with soil, no need for a compost pile. In the valley you can overhead water without fear, the water evaporates fast and there's no danger of fungal disease (I only overhead water, early in the morning). Read up on cover crops, they will break up the hard soil with deep roots, bring humus and nitrogen to the soil and feed microorganisms as they rot (when you cut them down) - things like legumes, favas, buckwheat (cover crops for horticulture and hand-farming, not machine farming as some cover crops require heavy machinery to cut down).

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole Systems Agriculture