Mine is very, very sad looking. I'd love any advice on what fertilizers you use, whether you grow from seed or starts, or why my potatoes haven't come up yet!

So far, this is what's in my veggie garden:
- 12 sweet corn (all I could fit)
- 2 Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes
- 1 banana pepper
- 1 eggplant
-1 patch of onions
-4 asparagus plants
- assorted lettuce and spinach
- those darn taters.

I've also got raspberries in pots and strawberries in a small tub. Everything seems to be grumpy about the weather, and I'm having trouble finding a good mulch. Someone recommended sphagnum moss but I've heard that it can clump and harden enough that it blocks water; someone else recommended straw but that only seems to be available in the fall.

Any tips or tricks?

Mulch: I make my own compost and mix that with peat moss and have no problems with it clumping or hardening. Mixing your peat with soil or bagged composted manure (e.g.) would be fine also. Then later in the season you can mulch with grass clippings, shredded leaves, etc. I use straw and marsh hay (given to me every year in bags by a friend who's used it as a winter cover for roses) on my tomatoes and other vegetables-- straw is better than hay because of the latter's tendency to have a lot of seeds. I don't know if you can find it now. Marsh hay is very good, but is more expensive; not sure about its availability in garden stores.

For fertilizer I rely on lots of compost, but occasionally side dress, sparingly, with granular 10-10-10 or similar. Fish emulsion--about 1 tbsp per gallon-- can give a boost to all vegetables a couple of times a season (I use it as an occasional foliar feed and soil drench on tomatoes).

Others may have different counsel, but these things work for me.

Good luck and happy gardening!

Gary