This topic comes up a lot. I started using a pine bark based mix I think the summer of 2005 based upon that article Al started. My entire container garden consisted of bad practices -- topsoil and compost. Plants still grow in that stuff BTW. Due to the size of my container garden at the time (~200 cubic feet), it was impractical logistically to convert everything to pine bark in one fell swoop. Most of my container garden is on a rooftop so just hauling the material up there is a chore. I made an executive decision to do 50/50. 50% of the mix uses last year's mix and 50% uses pine bark (plus the requisite perlite and other stuff). Gradually, over the years, the entire garden is practically 100% pine bark based. I still reuse 50% of last year's mix and have noticed that pine bark can last a bunch of years. Certain containers that support forgiving plants like morning glories, I only change those containers out every three years. The pine bark does hold up year after year. If you're dealing with a couple of baskets of plants just use fresh mix since it's not that much. If you have a lot of containers and want to limit the amount of work come up with some way to recycle last year's mix. When you introduce new pine bark or whatever into your container garden, an equivalent amount of container mix must be disposed of for whatever new stuff gets introduced. This also becomes a problem for those of us (like me in the city) who have nowhere to put it. Luckily, now, my discarded mix every year is better than the best top soil any big box store has to offer so I have plenty of takers for my discards to put in their in ground gardens. Below is a link to photos of my rooftop garden over the years. The last garden album I kept was 2007 but it'll give you an idea of what it looks like. This year I'm going to put up a new garden gallery -- that is if I have a good year of course. :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Click on the Gardening Albums

Thanks all and appreciate the link Dave. They really were SVB larvae, identical to the pictures and tons of frass. I wonder what a pupa looks like - I can't really tell from the pics in the link. Anyway, I already replanted yellow squash seedlings and zuke seeds in new mix before reading Dave's post. It may be too late to try again, but it stays warm here until October at least with no frost until November so it can't hurt! I just posted a reply to someone else's post about SVBs ("the AUDACITY") asking if there is a date by which the moths go away. But then I just read an article that said the south may have 2 generations per year. If anyone has knowledge about this, would appreciate. Thanks again for the replies. I need squash! :-)

I've always reused my soil. I worked at a nursery where the owner always reused the soil. I had a lady tell me once to never reuse soil. I guess it's up to you. As long as it's not diseased I don't see why not.

Lime crush with some gravel traces Lime crush with some soil traces (top section of the picture) Soil with some traces of lime crush (close up with the bottom side of the above picture)