Hi,

I am loving my gardening 'challenges.'

Some background: I am a Pre-K teacher and summer camp teacher with school age kids. We planted in the spring in a slightly raised bed, cabbage, lettuces, and radishes. At the end of the school year we pulled everything, lightly tilled, and planted veggies. This year is the first time I have gardened and I have been pretty much on my own (no others teachers have shown much interest.)

This past summer we successfully harvested numerous cukes, green beans, corn, and tomatoes. We lost squash, zukes, and pumpkin to SVB's...though we put up a good fight, lol. Nothing like learning the life cycle of insects with SVB's...can't get more 'hands-on' than removing larva from stems, hunting eggs, and trying to catch that dreadful moth!

We are ready to pull cukes, peppers, old corn stalks, toms, and green beans. We have empty spaces from squash and pumpkins. However, we have a decent handful of cantaloupes, and 2 watermelon still ripening. Luckily the cantaloupes are happily trellised along our chain link fence.

For fall, I want to plant broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and just a few radishes.

My question is...should I do anything to 'amend' the soil before planting for fall? Should we add some compost and/or manure? What kind? Or should we add some type of fertilizer and then after the fall harvest add some good stuff in preparation for spring? I think I read somewhere that there is some type of micro-organisms we can add to kill any possible SVB larvae? The same soil/dirt has been there since this past winter. Because it is on a portion of our playground, there are quite a bit of wood chips in the garden. We are having a blast and kids and I both learning so much everyday. Maybe too much...ignorance was bliss, lol. Now that I know more, I want to make sure we do whatever we can to keep our garden happy.

Thanks so much for your input!

Here is a link that might be useful: