Planning is hard!!!!!

First of all, apologies to my mother...in my profile, I stated that my father has a ridiculously green thumb.  I failed to mention that my mother also has that crazy ability to grow things.  There have been some legendary zucchini and tomatoes, which she, of course, has pictures of.  She is currently into cactus, which she may keep...I don't need any more reminders that I live in a desert climate! 

Okay, so I thought that planning my garden would be a simple and non-stressful task.  I was completely wrong about that.  First of all, I keep forgetting to measure the exact dimensions of the garden.  So, therefore trying to decide what and how much to plant is a moot point until that task is complete.  Then I start thinking about vegetable placement and that confuses me as well...should I put the squash next to the tomatoes?  Peppers near squash?  Onions next to peppers?  Pumpkins?  And so on...  Really, I can't even decide exactly what I want to grow.  Peppers, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers are the staples and non-negotiables.  Herbs will be potted, especially after I nearly pulled a hammie trying to yank the dead basil out of the ground.  Onions...loved the green onions last season, so those may be invited back.  Regular onions seem to be a bit more difficult...you plant what looks like an onion and then magically you should have more.  When I pulled them out of the ground, they looked the same as when I planted them, except dirtier. Garlic should have been planted in November it seems, so that's a definite no.  Eggplant is supposedly an easy to grow vegetable...perhaps...I will definitely need to find some recipes for that. Mom???  Okra...love that stuff, but it didn't work out so well last year...see my first post about medieval weapons!  Peas and beans are reportedly great growers here...the local farmers seem to do well with them.  Maybe...we'll see how ambitious I get this season.

I guess the hardest part of planning is that I have visions of these neatly and properly planted gardens from magazines touting that you too, can grow phenominally colorful and huge vegetables.  These gardens are clearly not part of Zone 9, which is arid and desert-like.  Even Sunset, which is "supposed" to be for the West, forgets us out here in the Central Valley where temperatures regularly reach the high 90's and low 100's. 

Alrighty then...I am going to peruse some gardening websites and see what advice I can get from those.  I found a nice Zone 9-10 Planting schedule on-line.  Good start...