I have clay so it’s very alkaline too, and the sprinkler water doesn’t help. But I do amend my soil with compost.
I’m in an online Facebook gardening group here in AZ. One tip that’s floated around a lot in that group is to use agricultural sulphur soil amendments. Apply on top of the soil about every 3 months and just water it in. After about a year, your soil pH should drop, which will make it easier for plants to take up nutrients. One of the local nurseries did this and sent their soil before and after to a lab and it made a huge difference…I think that their pH dropped to the 7 range.
The sulphur comes in these little pellets. I use the Tiger 90 brand. Of course, I’m about 2 months overdue for an application.
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I add Alfalfa meal to my roses, it does help with growth.
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My ph9 soil has actually done a fine job with zucchini and cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes. My bigger tomatoes not doing great (just a few, still all green), but other gardeners are complaining this year too. I think the high temps have taken a toll.
One thing I do to try to help the situation is dig a big hole when putting in plants, add a lot of bagged soils.
I hired the neighbor kid to water while we were on a 3+ week road trip. I came back to some wonderful cherry and grape tomatoes. Here’s a picture of a partial haul.
and more
Now wishing I had picked some more earlier today because the much anticipated rain came, ad there is some hail too.
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On jalapenos - look into making Cowboy Candy. There are lots of recipes online; I don’t cook (hubby does) so I can’t recommend one over the other. But it’s amazing!
As for manure, suggest quizzing your neighbor on what the horse eats. I follow Roots & Refuge on YouTube and she had a disaster with compost this year because the supplier got contaminated stuff and passed it on. Apparently there’s a Dow product called Grazon that is an herbicide and that passed through cows/horses and has a very long life and will kill our gardening efforts.
Good tip about manure. I think it’s ok because same stuff was used this spring in our church giving garden, where plants seem ok.
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Always good to get a ringer to test it for you 
I’m waiting for this Ajvarski pepper to turn completely red to try this recipe. I also thinking of making Spanish Migas with it and my Poblano peppers.
Phew… after destroying a few green ones, the blue jays left my peaches alone. We collected our small peach harvest yesterday. The variety is called Frost and grows well in the PNW.
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I just wanted to come back and report that we have now installed the second rain barrel. The first one was just not sufficient for the rains we get here in SE North Carolina. We are capturing water from a portion of our roof, probably less than a quarter of the roof. The gutter goes to the downspout into the first barrel (which is on a little stand). When that fills, we have the overflow into the second barrel, which is not elevated. When that fills, we have the overflow run off away from the house, on a sloping part of the yard.
My pollinator garden is really working. I see Monarch butterflies and Swallowtails on a daily basis now.
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I read your earlier posts on your rain barrel setup - it’s something I really want to do here. Of course, in NE PA we’ve had very little rain this summer; my rain barrels would be dry if I’d gotten around to it.
Last year I battled a plague of slugs because of all the rain; I barely had to water the garden all year. This year we expanded the garden and it takes over an hour to water, which I’ve been having to do every second day because of the heat.
We can’t do irrigation or soaker hoses, not without a massive expense, because we live on something like a boulder field, everything is raised beds, there’s no way to dig down and there are a million sharp rocks we’ve hauled out of the way to create beds that give me agita on the daily.
I’m watering so much that I worry about the well that is all the water we have for drinking.
So once you bought the barrel(s) and stands, you had a gutter person install your setup? Was it expensive?
I’m not @BerneseMtnMom but I set up a rain barrel this year. An org I belong to had a rain barrel “class” - the barrels were donated by a local pop (soda) distributor - mine smells like Fresca. 
We drilled with assistance the holes and such for the barrel. I painted it at home - sort of a textured grey from white so it would blend in next to the spot in our side yard I was placing it.
Ours receives water from our sunporch downspouts only. So basically a one room square of downspouts. You would not believe how much water gathers quickly! We also have not had a wet summer (Northwest Ohio) and my barrel only had one point in the summer where it was empty. I think it’s a 55 gallon. Our neighbor who already had one said it only takes a .2 inch rain to fill up his 50 gallon barrel.
We bought a downspout diverter on Amazon and installed it ourselves. Not hard. Excess water either comes out the downspout at the base or goes through the side tube of our barrel where we have it directed away from the house.
I LOVE having it and my husband was pretty leery but let me tell you I have a lot of flower plants and when I turn that spout and fill up my watering can and the water RUSHES out I feel so good about reusing that rain water!
Here’s a photo when we first set it up. The hose on top isn’t in place but you get the idea.
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The first barrel was from Lowe’s and by the time we realized we needed a second, they were sold out so off to Amazon. In addition to the barrels we bought black tubing (sump pump discharge hose kit) and needed two of those. We bought a little stand for higher barrel, but the lower barrel just sits on some excess pavers we had around, so all together probably 400 dollars. The barrels are nice and match our siding - 150 a piece.
We are going away on vacation and needed to know it will be okay while we are gone, so the overflow had to be routed to a place away from the house. Otherwise, it just spills over the top of the barrel.
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My overflow hose is the black hose on the side of my picture. The hose goes behind the barrel and beyond the downspout that sticks out. So water will never spill over the top. My top also has 2 metal grate holes so that no leaves or other debris gets inside the barrel.
Since we do get winter and cold weather here, prior to winter a cap came with the diverter to block off the water to the barrel. I guess then we will just empty the barrel and…anything else to winterize it??
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This is what I found on Craigslist today - two for $100.
Very very happy, and so wonderful that I was just “talking” about it in here and they magically appeared online for me.
Now I just gotta figure out the install pieces we’ll need.
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Wow that’s amazing and how ironic you were just talking about them!
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We are getting our front walkway and steps redone right now. I’d love to put two tall planters on the top step. What kind of planters do you have? What kind of plants do you have in these planters? I was thinking primarily of some colorful annuals and then put the planters away in storage for the winter.
Also we had a couple of boxwoods on either side of the door that were removed as part of this project. Opens up some space for new plants. One side has a magnolia tree, the other(longer) bed has a couple of huge rhododendrons that dominate the space. Suggestions for plants/flowering bushes for this space? Don’t want anything that will grow too big. Fair amount of sun, zone 5.
I have 2 big planters (bought at Costco years ago - they last!) that are neutral in color and probably 2.5 feet high and 1.5 feet wide (just guessing - I’m not home!). In the spring/summer/fall I plop - but actually PLANT an entire hanging basket in each. Usually one of the beautiful geranium + spilling over annuals you see at plant stores. These get a good bit of morning sun.
After Thanksgiving (the hanging plants are pulled by now) I put two 3-4 ft thinner lighted artificial trees in - one in each pot. I often take pine boughs from our yard and stick them in the dirt around the pots - these become part of our holiday lights! After the New Year I disconnect the lights but leave the trees in usually through January or until the pot thaws enough that I can pull the artificial trees out!
I change my front pots seasonally. In the spring and summer, there are annuals, in the Fall, asters or mums, in the winter I have evergreen branches.
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I bought a fairly expensive pair of cement planters. They are urn shaped and have a separate base. The water drains through them. I change the plants by season. I also take them inside during the dead of Winter ( Jan-March) so they don’t crack. In the Summer I put two hibiscus plants and vinca vines. In the winter, little evergreens and wintergreen. IN the Spring, sometimes tulips, sometimes a mix. I live near lots of farms, so I mix up the plantings. Usually takes a couple of hours.