[QAGuy]

A bit of backround to start. I live in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains just outside of Los Angeles.

My native soil is crap, to put it mildly. It's called caliche and is basically small rock particles from the mountains and calcium carbonate mixed together. Caliche is used to make adobe bricks. Some water, a binder such as straw and caliche is mixed together, put into a mold and left to bake in the sun. Makes a hard, durable brick. The California missions were built from the late 1790's through the 1830's. Many still stand today.

There's a product called Kellogg's AMEND which (according to them) is specially formulated for caliche soil. I can't tell you how many bags of this stuff I've added to the garden outside of LOTS of bags.

I use my grass clippings as a mulch through the growing season and dig that in over the winter.

I can get free compost from our local waste management company. They hold a compost giveaway every spring through my town. I can get 30 gal every year.

I also get free coffee grounds from my local eatery, also around 30 gal a year. Coffee grounds are a good addition to the garden. It's organic too if that matters to you. Worms love coffee grounds. I have lots of worms in my tomato plot.

Both of these get dug in before planting out.

Didn't get coffee grounds or compost this year due to COVID, but it doesn't seem to have hurt anything this year. Will resume again next year.

I have a California Live Oak in the parkway at my place. It puts out lots and lots of pollen. So much so that it piles up in the gutter of the street. This year, since I didn't have compost or coffee grounds, I decided to use the pollen and flowers as my organic amendment. Don't know how much difference that made, but my tomatoes sure look good. Might have to add that to the yearly rejuvenation of the tomato beds.

I use MiracleGro for tomatoes as fertilizer. I fertilize weekly. Make sure it's the FOR TOMATOES version of MiracleGro. Been using that stuff for 30+ years. See no reason to change.