Reply #3: To improve your harvest, feed your soil with compost and manure

[JDPriestly]

and get a worm bin. (I keep mine indoors.) You can get a worm bin at Griffith Park. They tell you how to manage it.

You need some mulch to protect the roots and earth around your tomatoes from getting scorched dry. You are really going to enjoy your tomatoes and zucchini. I am in your zone and just now planting green beans and zucchini.

In the fall, you can start seedlings for lettuce and when it starts to get cool, plant peas.

Remember peas and beans feed nitrogen into you soul. We need to fix nitrogen in our soil here in S. Cal. because it doesn't rain much, and my soil at least, is very low in nitrogen.

Have fun. Aren't homegrown tomatoes just amazing?