I'm new to the forum, at least at posting here. I've found gardenweb's vermicomposting section to be a great source of information. I'm really not much of a gardener, so I'm hoping to draw on the experience of the people here.

I just moved into a house and there's a patch of soil on the west side of the building. Apparently, this patch gets too much sun reflected off the garage facing it. If watered in the morning, the soil can get so dried out that it's cracked and opened up to nearly a foot deep. My question is if there is anything that would be ideal to grow there (maybe some sun loving plant at the edge that can deal with dry conditions and provide some sort of buffer to the rest of the soil patch), or if this could be a soil problem. I have a ton of vermicompost sitting around if that would help.

I'm from Saskatoon, if that matters for plant selection. Some sort of food plants would be preferable, even if they're not the only thing in that area of soil.