I've been having varying results with Al's potting mix.

Seeds germinated quickly, but didn't seem to grow much - maybe I should have fertilized heavily.

Lemongrass plant grew quite well, but was difficult to pot up. The roots were wrapped around the bottom of the pot, but no roots at all appeared near the top. The soil ball collapsed as soon as I took it out. Granted, I'm not that experienced with repotting. The two other lemongrass plants I had were older but have not been repotted yet. They do not have roots sticking out the bottom.

So I'm going to compare 3 mixes. I have a 2-3 gallon self watering container (made out of 4 gallon bucket) and a 2-3 gallon traditional draining container (partly sawed off 5 gallon container) for each.

Later on for the summer crop, if I ever get seedlings to germinate, I want to do 3 dwarf tomatoes - either Red Robin or Tiny Tim in the SWC. Then 3 mini bell peppers in the normal draining containers.

But I'm still wondering about the spring and fall veggies.

Originally I was thinking of doing the SWC with radishes, carrots, and sugar snap peas, but I think it is getting late in the season for peas, and carrots are supposed to be hard to grow.

The traditional containers were going to be half leaf lettuce and half spinach. They are about 10" wide and 8" tall. Don't know if it is getting late for spinach, either.

Depending which source you use, last freeze date is anywhere from now (Virginia extension) to mid May (nursery). The history from a nearby small airport says that there hasn't been a May freeze in the last 12 years and April usually gets down to ~30 F at the lowest temperature all month.

Anyways, more suggestions for common container veggies to try?

Here's the mixes I'm trying - each of these was mixed to ~5 gallons.

Al's mix in a 3-1-1 pine bark-peat-perlite. (green stripes) Initial watering had a little water pooling but soaked in rapidly.

My mix in 1-2-1 of the same + 1/2 washed coarse-ish sand and 1/4 compost. Compost has been sitting out all winter and the sand was not sterilized. (purple stripes). Initial watering had a little more pooling, but not much.

Both of these got a little miracle gro water while mixing and had 1/4c dynamite flower/veggie delayed release (purple bottle) and 1/4 c garden lime. The perlite had a lot of dust in it, despite being labeled coarse perlite.

Then the potting mix from a local nursery called Merrifield's. Red striped containers. This soaked in more quickly than the other two.

I'm a little annoyed because I think they mixed up and gave me a 16 quart bag instead of a 32 quart which is what I thought I was buying and paid for.

It is definitely more of a black color and smells more like compost. Flakes of vermiculite. Visible perlite, but less than what the other two are using.

I filled the 6 containers and watered them tonight. I figure I'll plant tomorrow. Even if it is supposed to be yucky out in the early evening.

Soooooo..... I think I will be off for my next attempt at getting seedlings started. I'm going to water with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide added, not plant things so deep, and cover lightly with sterilized sand.

If people have more thoughts on test veggies, let me know.

Alice