Ljbrandt, Excellent experiment, and right on time! I'm about to start my fall/winter garden here in Houston, and need some advice. Been trying to catch up to Al, but, seems he's outta pocket. I used a modification of his 5:1:1 container mix for the first time last season, growing the best crop of healthy tomatoes and plants ever. On Al's recommendation, I used a 3:1:1 mix of PBFs:peat:perlite in 5-gallon, self-watering eBuckets. I used MG Potting mix as my peat component, and I mixed in 1 cup of powdered Dolomite lime + 1 cup of 10-10-10 per eBucket. Very healthy crop! Only concern I had was at the end of the season when I ripped the plants, I noticed the mix at the bottom 1/4 of the eBucket seemed to be holding a bit more water than throughout the top 3rd. Also, I stayed confused on the watering schedule, because I could never tell if I needed to water or not. I might try your dowel this go-round, and try to adapt that as a measuring system. Now, I'm prepping my eBuckets for my fall/winter garden. I'll be growing cabbages, cauliflowers, Brussels Sprouts, and broccoli in the 5-gallon eBuckets. These are high feeders (they like organic mediums), and they are water hogs! I'd like a recommendation, please, on how to reuse the 3:1:1 mix from last season, and in what proportion to fresh MG potting mix, fresh PBFs, and fresh perlite? After reading your experiment, I'm inclined to go forward to a 5:1:1 mix in at least some of the eBuckets (I'll have about 48) just to see what would happen. Also, I need a recommendation on incorporating Black Kow Composted manure into the mix, as the plants are heavy feeders. I've grown them quite successfully in eBuckets before, in a mix of 50/50 MG Potting mix/Black Kow Composted manure. I'm still trying to get a feel for Al's container mixes, and how the plants respond (last season was my first time). I loved the lightening fast drainage, and felt there was definite oxygenation going on in the mix, because the seedlings took off like a rocket when they were planted, and stayed so healthy through our Texas heat. They grew faster than I ever saw before. Please note that not all my containers were true eBuckets. I made 1/2 of them free draining with holes drilled in the bottoms and 1/4" up the sides. These were top-watered with MG Water Soluble Plant Food for Veggies. The remaining were enclosed with the built-in reservoirs. Early on, I experienced an anaerobic odor emitting from some of the self-enclosed eBuckets, and discovered the overturned colander soil platform had collapsed in them and the mix was sitting in the water. Once I rebuilt them, there was no further smells. One other observation was that the eBuckets didn't seem to wick the water high enough, which is why I started top watering them, before the season ended. I know I've offered a mouthful here. Hope to hear some feed back as soon as you can get it posted. Almost forgot. I've started sifting dead tomato root hairs from the old 3:1:1 container mix, and will be ready to re-purpose it for the cole crops by the end of this week, so a speedy reply would be appreciated. Thank you so much, Linda

Hey Tom: Thanks for posting the link to this thread. Very helpful indeed, and your garden is gorgeous, healthy and thriving. I must get some cattle panel--wonder how I'm going to fit it in my Mini Cooper! I've also had good luck making our Serious Tomato Cages using cow fencing. Finally, we have mater cages that are tall enough and strong enough to actually support the heirloom tomatoes that get over 8 feet tall. It's fun to think of and share creative ways to use products like cattle panel for the garden, isn't it? What else have folks used that works well? Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Cowlick Cottage Farm

I'm a newbie to SWCs. I bought six 30ga Sterlite totes for $8.99 each at Meijer today to make 3 of these things (raincheck used from 4 weeks ago when Meijer was sold out). I also went to Home Depot and bought eight 3cuft peat bales for $6.40 each. The material is extremely dry, so I dumped it all out on top of my SFG (we're due for more rain tonight). Hope that wasn't a bad thing to do. Lowes sells 3.8cuft peat bales for $9.97 in case anyone was wondering. I was planning to simply make Mel's mix and use that for the SWCs. It sounds like maybe I should forego the compost and find some large bags of perlite. I recently bought several 18lb bags of vermiculite and was going to use that, but I don't want my SWC to be a failure in Kentucky (similar to high humidity in Ohio, but gets very hot and later dry with patchy rain in the early summer - which always seems to miss my area *grumble*). I was planning to buy a cubic yard (or two) of compost from a bulk materials place I have used the last couple years (only $10 for a cubic YARD of compost made from Kentucky thoroughbred horse poo). Hmm... Maybe my strategy should be 70% peat (scooped off garden), 20% vermiculite and the 10% perlite? I figured it would cost less for me to make enough mix myself than buying Miracle Grow mix (plus it is more fun to make it yourself) HD only has the 9"X9" plant baskets. I hope I won't have a tough time finding the 4"x4" ones mentioned here. I think all the hydroponics stores in my area are only open 9-5pm type hours which is difficult for me due to the next possible weekday for me to have off is in late March. I'll keep tabs on this thread. I have learned alot already and am excited to get started, but being cautious since I have never constructed a SWC and have already spent more money than I probably should have. ;)

Dave, Hehe...I hope its that easy with my toms this year. I've had BER in the past with a few types of tomatoes in containers, but ever since I started adding domolite to my mixes, it seems to have been alleviated. This is also the first time I've had it when using SWCs. Its funny that you mention how you've seen it disappear as plants mature. In my current situation I've seen two patterns to it's appearance. The first was with the Olpaka which has been about 75% of the fruits having BER since the first ones set last month. The other pattern with the Cherokee Purple, Kellogs, and as of today Arkansas Traveler is one where a month of good fruit set and growth is followed by new fruit developing BER. The older fruit is still healthy. I know that temps, water conditions, etc. play a major role in the plants' ability to uptake calcium. Aside from the normal, seasonal warm up we are experiencing, there hasn't been any appreciable change in the weather or other conditions. So far, the only variable that seems to be different this year than previous ones is the absence of the domolite. I'll try a little of everything in attempting to eliminate the BER on new fruit. If anything works or if the plants just decide to "grow up" and act like adults, so long as the BER disappears, I'll be happy. Steven