You're welcome. Thanks again, for being so kind. Some thoughts I offered in another, older threads on this forum. They should pretty much answer your question, and may even be quoted in the text somewhere up this thread (if so, I apologize for the redundancy): In my estimation, the only case to be made for reusing container soils is one of economics, and you'll never find me argue against making that decision. If you can't afford, you can't afford it. That said and setting economics aside, you might decide to reuse soil for reasons other than economical. Perhaps the effort involved with acquiring (or making your own) soil is something you might not wish to go through or be bothered with. In any case, it would be difficult to show that soils in a more advanced state of structural collapse can somehow be preferred to a soil that can be counted on to maintain its structure for the entire growth cycle. So, if the economic aspect is set aside, at some point you must decide that "my used soil is good enough" and that you're willing to accept whatever the results of that decision are. All soils are not created equal. The soils I grow in are usually pine bark based & collapse structurally at a much slower rate that peat based soils, yet I usually choose to turn them into the garden or give them over to a compost pile where they serve a better purpose than as a container soil after a year of service. Some plantings (like woody materials and some perennials) do pretty well the second year in the same bark-based soil, and with careful watering, I'm usually able to get them through a third year w/o root issues. Watering habits are an extremely important part of container gardening. Well structured soils that drain well are much more forgiving and certainly favor success on the part of the more inexperienced gardeners. As soils age, water retention increases and growing becomes increasingly difficult. If your (anyone's) excellence in watering skills allows you to grow in an aging medium, or if your decision that "good enough" is good enough for you, then it's (your decision) is good enough for me, too. The phrases "it works for me" or "I've done it this way for years w/o problems" is often offered up as good reason to continue the status quo, but there's not much substance there. I'm being called away now, but I'll leave with something I offered in reply on a recent thread: "... First, plants really aren't particular about what soil is made of. As long as you're willing to stand over your plant & water every 10 minutes, you can grow most plants perfectly well in a bucket of marbles. Mix a little of the proper fertilizers in the water & you're good to go. The plant has all it needs - water, nutrients, air in the root zone, and something to hold it in place. So, if we can grow in marbles, how can a soil fail? Our growing skills fail us more often than our soils fail. We often lack the experience or knowledge to recognize the shortcomings of our soils and to adjust for them. The lower our experience/knowledge levels are, the more nearly perfect should be the soils we grow in, but this is a catch 22 situation because hidden in the inexperience is the inability to even recognize differences between good and bad soil(s). Container soils fail when their structure fails. When we select soils with components that break down quickly or that are so small they find their way into and clog macro-pores, we begin our growing attempts under a handicap. I see anecdotes about reusing soils, even recommendations to do it all over these forums. I don't argue with the practice, but I (very) rarely do it, even when growing flowery annuals, meant only for a single season. Soils don't break down at an even rate. If you assign a soil a life of two years and imagine that the soil goes from perfect to unusable in that time, it's likely it would be fine for the first year, lose about 25% of its suitability in the first half of the second year, and lose the other 75% in the last half of the second year. This is an approximation & is only meant to illustrate the exponential rate at which soils collapse. Soils that are suitable for only a growing season show a similar rate of decline, but at an accelerated rate. When a used soil is mixed with fresh soil after a growing season, the old soil particles are in or about to begin a period of accelerated decay. I choose to turn them into the garden or they find their way to a compost pile. Unless the reasons are economical, I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would add garden soils to container soils. It destroys aeration and usually causes soils to retain too much water for too long. Sand (unless approaching the size of BB's), has the same effect. I don't use compost in soils because of the negative effect on aeration/drainage. The small amount of micro-nutrients provided by compost can be more efficiently added, organically or inorganically, via other vehicles. To boil this all down, a container soil fails when the inverse relationship between aeration/drainage goes awry. When aeration is reduced, soggy soil is the result, and trouble is in the making. I've mentioned before that I don't post here to get people to convert to a particular mix or blend of soil. I post what I know will work very well for anyone who can get appropriate ingredients & modify the mix to suit their climate & other cultural conditions. If you use a mix that guarantees good aeration for the expected life of the planting - you're in good shape. Most peat based mixes will not work well in extended life plantings. Conifer bark based mixes, on the other hand, retain structure for much longer periods. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate .... Al

A local nursery swears by Milorganite, which they actually place small handfuls of into panty-hose and hang it every 30 feet around the perimeter of the property to keep deer out. Not sure about it's other critter-repelling qualities, though. Here is a link that might be useful: Milorganite Organic Products

You need to check out the USDA s National Organic Program (NOP). This is the federal agency that regulates organic agriculture in this country. If any food product is going to be sold as "organic" it must meet the standards of the NOP. Likewise, the producer of the organic food must be certified as organic by a USDA approved certifying agency. The application process to obtain certification takes quite a bit of work. I am currently working on my application, I should know. It is also not cheap. Expect to pay a bit of money to become certified-probably 500-1000 bucks. The good news for you though, there is an exemption within the NOP which allows growers to circumvent the certification process if they make less than $5000 annually from their product(s). However, you still must contact the USDA and tell them of your intentions to receive the exemption. You still must be in compliance with all NOP regulations and are subject to inspection. If you are going to represent your product as "organic" you must meet the standards of the NOP, or you face a $10,000 dollar fine for misrepresentation. To answer your question about what ammendments/pesticides/herbicides/fungicides/etc. are allowed, you should become familiar with the NOP. It lists in broad terms what is allowed and what is not for products under organic production. If you are looking at commercially available ammendments or controls, you should look for products that are "OMRI listed" (Organic Materials Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon) or products "that meet NOP standards". Check out Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden supply at www.groworganic.com and familiarize yourself with products that are OMRI listed or approved for NOP. Neem oil seems to be o.k. for NOP. I don't think that Ivory soap would meet the standards though. A little bit overwhelming, huh..?

What do you do with animal manures in an organic garden? Frequently many people ask questions about the use of animal manures in their gardening schemes. Thousands of years ago, the ancient organic farmers used animal manures as a mandatory and essential agent for soil conditioning and plant fertilization. Today many people are fearful of the use of any animal manures in gardening, due to more and more scary reports of potential diseases. Also there are less farmers today that apply animal manures in their farming techniques, than several hundred years ago. So the world is finding it harder and harder to dispose of animal manures in our society today, than several centuries ago. So what do you do? First of all you must understand that any type of fresh animal manure behaves a lot differently in the soil than mature compost or well aged manures. NOTE: Well aged manures act a lot like mature compost in the soil.: 1. Fresh manures are too strong and raw for most growing plants. It contains a lot of available soluble nitrogen in the form of ammonium or proteins. Most raw animal manures contain the wrong form of nitrogen and the wrong form of bacteria for gardening use, from the original animal's digestive tract. This can burn or kill plants if abused. Compost will never burn or kill plants. 2. Also animal manures by themselves are classified as "greens" or high nitrogen sources. The soil needs composted organic materials that is a blend of "browns" (high carbon materials) and "greens", in order to maximize the correct balance of soil microbial activity and the availablity of nutrients in the soil for plants. Animals manures are best incorporated in a soil building program when mixed with high carbon materials like straw, leaves, or untreated sawdust. Using more browns than greens in any animal manure based compost will also help neutralize NaCl salts via aerobic microbes faster. Using molasses products in a tea form is a even faster and better way to speed up microbial activity, growth, and internal heating in the pile, to stabilize and balance out the nutrients in the organic matter in the compost pile. 3. Fresh manures also contain too many complex undigested materials like pathogens, or NaCl salts from animal feeds, that may harm plants or soil organisms if not careful. Compost has all these things broken down and digested by aerobic microbes. 4. Many animal manures have urine mixed in it. All raw bird manure is always premixed with urine and manure. Urine contains mostly urea in it. Urea is one of the oldest, safest, and free sources of nitrogen known to man. Urea breaks down fast in the soil, the compost pile, or in a compost tea brew. Human urea alone, has a NPK ratio near 45-0-0. Vegetarian animals like cows or horses, produce poop that is more easily digestable by aerobic microbes than say carnivorous animals like chicken or pig manure. Chicken manure is a great manure, but it is more stinky, more alkaline, and has far more available ammonium nitrogen in it, than say cow or horse manure. Some composting experts are successfully composting human manure under controlled conditions. Both fresh human manure and chicken manures contain some heavy metals and pathogens in it. However, the metals in not an issue in composting, due to the widespread acceptability of chicken manure composting. Many people are cautious of composting fresh pet manures like dog and cat poops. There has been some reports of fresh cat manure having ill effects on unborn children with pregnant woman. NOTE: The main reason why most organic books and websites are strict about only composting vegetarian animal manures or plant wastes, is because the average home gardener is a passive composter. These conservative authors play it safe, so that the average composter doesn't hurt himself, or create stinky conditions that may attract pests, or disturb the neighborhood. Only an active hot composting process can totally guarantee a safe, healthy, mature compost from potentially risky materials like human manures, meat products, or other questionably high nitrogen organic materials. Keep in mind that products like bone meal, blood meal, and fish emulsion are all great acceptable natural fertilizers made from cooked meat products, under controlled composting conditions. Remember to only compost any animal manures or meat products that you feel totally comfortable with as an "experienced" composter. Horses only digest about 1/4 of all the grass and grains they consume. Therefore horse manure is a very weedy manure. On the other hand, cows have 4 stomachs. So their manure is more digested, and has less weed seeds in it. ********************************************************** Well aged animal manures are the best for all gardening tasks. If you only only have fresh manures, hot composting is definitely the answer to all these issues. However, if you hot compost any fresh animal manures to internal temperatures at or above 140 degrees F, for several days, mixed with enough high carbon materials, you can guarantee a safe, healthy, mature composted product, that has removed almost all of the potential pathogens, diseases, and weed seeds in the original animal manures. ********************************************************** Another option, is to bury or till in any fresh manures into the soil in the winter time before spring. This gives the manure enough time to break down, and the aerobic microbes to grow and release the humus created from the manure into the soil. However, you still got the risk of new weed seeds sprouting in the spring from the fresh manures. In a no-till garden, you can apply any type of animal manure on top of the soil during the fall/winter season, then grow a thick legume/grain cover crop combination before spring. This will also supply nutrients to the cover crop as it grows, as well as give the soil microbes enough time to digest the manure into humus into the soil. In this method any new weed seeds are choked out or green mannured whenever the cover crop is mowed or chopped down. Never use fresh animal manures in any aerobic tea brewing method either! Whatever pathogens, NaCl salts, or diseases in the original material will grow tremendously in the tea. It's best to use well aged compost or composted manures in any tea brew. Aerobic bacteria and fungi are the best microbes in composting and soil building that digest and destroy most disease causing bacteria. Some anaerobic bacteria is harmful to plants and soil organisms. In conclusion, if you decide to use animal manures in your composting scheme, there are many benefits: 1. You may be able to find a free soure from a local farm, horse clinic, police department that uses horses, zoo, etc. This gives you a great free source of "greens" for your compost. 2. All animal manures are great sources of beneficial microbes to stimulate your compost piles. This increases the compost decomposition rate. 3. Animal manures really increase internal heating in hot compost piles. 4. All composts have lots of beneficial aerobic bacteria and fungi growing in it for soil building and plant fertilization. Animal manures are naturally high in actinomycetes as well as bacteria also. 5. All animal manures are rich in NPK and calcium. Therefore they usually alkaline when fresh. However, all mature composts have a near neutral pH after the organic matter has been broken down by the composting process. 6. If sawdust is mixed in the poop, you have extra potassium in the mix. Straw and hay is rich in phoshorus also. 7. All animal manures break down fast. 8. Many animal manures have urine (urea) mixed in also. This is extra nitrogen for the compost. Under a well managed aerobic hot composting system, animal manures can still play an important part in modern natural farming as it did centuries ago. Happy Gardening!