One simple garden chore makes your beds look better, your plants grow healthier, and minimizes some of the summer challenges we experience in our region. Yes, I am once again talking about one of my favorite things – compost! It's not called black gold for no reason, compost really can perform miracles in your soil.

Now is the time to topdress the beds with a fresh layer of compost, whether you make it yourself or buy bags of it at a garden center. Spreading it over the beds just before perennials begins bursting forth and before planting annuals allows for even coverage and gives the nutrients time to leech into the soil bed beneath. I'm pretty liberal with compost, spreading up to 4 inches over annual beds and 2 inches over perennial beds. You don't want to use too much over your dormant perennials, because you might end up burying them alive.

One issue with early compost topdressing is it gives the weeds a chance to invade the rich soil before your desired garden plants are established. Here is where mulch comes to the rescue. I advise organic mulch for vegetables and ornamentals. It doesn't cause the soil to overheat in summer, it looks great and it improves our sandy soil quality as it breaks down. I sometimes cover annual and vegetable beds with a sheet of black plastic until I plant, but plastic in established beds can overheat and burn the plant roots under the high desert summer sun if it's left in place. The soil also dries and becomes rock hard unless you have a good drip irrigation system in place beneath it.