For my regular tomato and pepper garden the area used to be lawn and still grows a good amount of grass and weeds.  It gets so bad that I give up trying to weed it and just take the weed eater between rows.  This year I decided to try to amend the soil and fight the grass.  The city give away free compost and wood chips the first Saturday of the month so I borrowed a friends trailer and had 1.5 yards of compost and 4.5 yards of chips loaded on to it.

I don't have an after photo yet as it has been dark ever night when I finish and then raining.

I finally broke down and bought my own tiller.  I had to go over it multiple times to break up the clay clumps that are just under the surface.




Planted the tomatoes and peppers putting some mulch around the plants to keep them out of the dirt as rain was coming.




Added about 2 inches of compost on top the soil.  Put a layer of nitrogen fertilizer on top of that, and not pictures is another 2-3 inches of wood chips on top of the compost.  The compost was not fully digested.  That may be helpful in keeping the grass away or it maybe too harsh and kill of my plants.  

The squirrels finally found the walnuts this spring and took care of a lot of them.  Still there could be many seedlings that will come up.  Easy enough to remove though. I have seeds from my 7th generation line or whatever number I'm on but no more seedlings.  The tomatoes have gotten smaller each generation; however, it is hard to know for sure as my goal is derive a juglone and drought tolerant line.  Juglone hits the hardest during the hot dry days of summer, so to get a real test I just threw the plants into the ground and other than compost or mulch I've done nothing so that they can be stressed as possible.  Hard to get good size tomatoes when the plants don't get watered.  


The bed now has a decent layer of woodchips on it to help keep weeds down. So far all the plants are doing well and growing like regular plants.  





The regular garden with good layer of compost and woodchips.




But I already have something growing up through.  It looks more like a nutsedge than grass.




I'm not sure about other old timers saying "that ground is no good" but the previous over of the property who lived here 30 years warned me the ground is not good and almost everything dies.  Sure enough, no matter what I do 80% of the perennials I plant don't make it past 2 years.  This picture is what I put in place 3 years ago.  If I'm lucky one of the Shasta Daises is still alive and that is it.  Something is just wrong with the ground but all the soil tests say it is fine.





I used to grow tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets and I have potting soil.  I can try to get some of my seeds growing, get them into buckets, and then place them under black walnut. I took out a massive hackberry tree that was growing next to a walnut, so I an area that gets sunlight but would still be under a walnut dripline.  I've almost given up on this as I've lost interest.  The only thing keeping me going is that I've invested so many years into the line that I have been going through the motions to keep it active.  Now I've gotten other projects caught up enough to put more effort into it.  

One interesting note, last year I harvested seeds from line from the earliest tomatoes that came on and then again at the end of the season.  The early season seeds all germinated while none of the end of the season did, this is from the same plant.  Not sure why exactly.  Like you said lots of variables and lots to unpack.  

Edging is expensive.  I installed a 20 or 25 ft strip on each of the gardens where they narrow and go through the rock structures.  I think they were something like $15 each.  I would need to spend another $100 in edging but long term it is probably worth it.

Now that the days are getting longer the foxes come around before it gets dark.  A little clip from tonight.  Little will not take the hotdog from my hand like her mother did but she will get within 2 feet of me to pick one up.

Yeah, her lineage and trust for me still lives on.  The foxes agree with you, they are staying up near the house when I am around and do not like to be in the middle part of the yard where I used to feed them.  Also any time there is any noise in the woods they stop and intently focus on it until they know what the threat is.  Usually it is a possum that has been coming out.  

I haven't seen anything on my bridge camera yet but I also don't have the coverage there that I want to.  I just had a guy drill post holes so I can put up some 6x6 posts to mount my cameras on.  I still need to figure out a power solution for the middle of the yard.  Once I get that in place I will be able to see down to and across the bridge.  

The next part of plan will take awhile as I'm waiting for the ATF to approve something I put into a trust.  

That was my thought too.  I just checked Lowes, $24 for 40ft so 60 cents a foot.  The 3"x4"x8' landscape posts are $5.08 or 63.5 cents per foot.  At least those have some significant volume to them.  Last week I bumped one of them with my tractor and it snapped.  Turns out termites were in it and eating away it after maybe 5 years of being in the ground.  The new pressure treated wood is garbage.  The 6x6 posts I mentioned are not CCA treated either.  I do have Post Saver sleeves for them so hopefully they work.