So I am planning to grow my fall vegetable garden in wine barrels, and I'm looking for advice on how to prepare them and what soil mix to use. Assuming these actually were used for wine in their prior life you don't need to do anything to prepare them. At most you can give them a fresh water rinse if you want to remove the 'gunk', but not necessary for plant health. Is there any reason not to grow edibles in wine barrels? None. They make fantastic containers. Please remember to drill a drainage hole in the bottom though if it doesn't have one. Without a drainage hole the risk of the plants getting too much water goes way, way up. Also, what's a good growing mix to keep my crops happy for winter and fall? A reasonably fast draining one. A bag of decent peat based mix from the garden center will work OK, but if you want a mix that will last longer and provide better results over it's useful lifespan in a container see this thread. Also, once the plants are done at the end of the season and I pull them out, can I reuse any of the mix, or should I dump it all in the compost? This depends on what the mix is made of. Things like compost and peat break apart into smaller and smaller particles quite rapidly and as this happens the mix holds more water, but less oxygen which is a bad thing. As a rule a store bought, peat based mix or a compost based mix should only be used for a single season and then used in a garden bed, their useful life in a container is over. If you make your mix with longer lasting, slower to decompose ingredients then you can reuse the mix longer while not having the problem of too much water/too little oxygen at the roots. (see the thread I linked to for more details).

Thank you EVERYONE for the great advice. I have my half wine barrel on order. I also have 3 bags of leaf compost, 2 bags of sand and 2 buckets of well aged horse manure. I have an excellent source to collect both fresh and decomposed pine needles. I will be mixing a combination of this for the soil. I also have peat moss and perilite in my shed which will also be used. It should be a good mix. I would like to load up on the decomposed pine needle compost but I don't want to go too nuts with it. I will be using a rubber mulch tree ring to rest the barrel half on. This worked really good for my butterfly bush half barrel planter and I figure it will slow the barrel bottom from rotting for a few more years. Once again, thanks for all the great advice. I appreciate the time everyone gave to respond to this forum. Kevin

larrick...I am using a rolling garbage can and several large, white barrels. I have found that these will make compost readily if you are consistent with water and the additions of plant materials, carbon, brown, nitrogen. I recently moved a static composter, and I found that the nearby trees had sent their roots into the pile! Obviously, they were seeking the nutrition! so I think the best bet is to make compost where tree and shrubs can't access it with their roots. I drilled some holes in each barrel and the garbage can...I simply roll them on the ground to mix up the contents...I keep several going and I find that they are decomposing material much faster than the static composter.

I drilled about 5 or 6 holes in mine. Then I put metal fabric screen over them to keep out voles,if any are around. I use ordinary bagged potting soil,either Miracle Grow,or other types. I added some fine pine bark mulch,and mulched the top when plants are in there. The only problem I have ever had is the occasional squirrel digging in the pot looking for whatever? We don't get freeze/thaw like they get up north,and you should certainly be fine there in Cal. Phil