It's pine bark, but it's hard to say by the picture if the size of the bark is appropriate. It looks like it's quite large. If you read the link Jodi left for you upthread, you probably realize that particle size and distribution is very important to how a container soil performs. Here is something I wrote to illustrate the importance of particle size/distribution: Obviously, I think the grower's soil choice when establishing a planting for the long term is the most important decision he/she will make. There is no question that the roots are the heart of the plant, and plant vitality is inextricably linked in a hard lock-up with root vitality. In order to get the best from your plants, you absolutely must have happy roots. If you start with a water-retentive medium, you cannot improve it's aeration or drainage characteristics by adding larger particulates. Sand, perlite, Turface, calcined DE ...... none of them will work. To visualize why sand and perlite can't change drainage/aeration, think of how well a pot full of BBs would drain (perlite), then think of how poorly a pot full of pudding would drain (bagged soil). Even mixing the pudding and perlite/BBs together 1:1 in a third pot yields a mix that retains the drainage characteristics and PWT height of the pudding. It's only after the perlite become the largest fraction of the mix (60-75%) that drainage & PWT height begins to improve. At that point, you're growing in perlite amended with a little potting soil. You cannot add coarse material to fine material and improve drainage or the ht of the PWT. Use the same example as above & replace the pudding with play sand or peat moss - same results. The benefit in adding perlite to heavy soils doesn't come from the fact that they drain better. The fine peat or pudding particles simply 'fill in' around the perlite, so drainage & the ht of the PWT remains the same. All perlite does in heavy soils is occupy space that would otherwise be full of water. Perlite simply reduces the amount of water a soil is capable of holding because it is not internally porous. IOW - all it does is take up space. If you want to profit from a soil that offers superior drainage and aeration, you need to build it into the soil from the start, by ensuring that the soil is primarily comprised of particles much larger than those in peat/compost/coir, which is why the recipes I suggest as starting points all direct readers to START with the foremost fraction of the soil being large particles, to ensure excellent aeration. From there, if you choose, you can add an appropriate volume of finer particles to increase water retention. You do not have that option with a soil that is already extremely water-retentive right out of the bag. I fully understand that many are happy with the results they get when using commercially prepared soils, and I'm not trying to get anyone to change anything. My intent is to make sure that those who are having trouble with issues related to soil, understand why the issues occur, that there are options, and what they are. Many use their current potting soils (like MG or used soils as a smaller fraction of a new media they put together specifically to improve drainage & aeration, so yes - you CAN use some of the soil you have as a fraction of a new soil, but keep in mind that you aren't going to rid yourself of the drainage/aeration and high PWT issues problems unless your soil is weighted heavily toward larger particles than your current soil is currently comprised of. When you add a little extra perlite and/or pine bark to a peat-based soil, you don't change the drainage characteristics, the height of the PWT, or aeration. You DO decrease the total volume of water the soil CAN hold, and that IS a plus, but that's about all you really accomplish. Add a LOT of (appropriate size) bark and perlite = job done. The physics of how water behaves in container soils doesn't change because someone might assure you it does. As surely as the cow is barred from jumping over the moon by the law of gravity, soils are bound by physical laws to exhibit rather specific and predictable characteristics based on their particle size and distribution (enter the pudding analogy into evidence). If you choose not to go with a soil that has a considerable fraction of larger particles, there are ways to help you deal with excess water retention when it occurs. There is a lot of good information about dealing with water retention if you follow the embedded link. When you get to where you're deciding about how you want to proceed with your soil, we can talk more specifically about tailoring a plan that best supports your methodology. Take care. Al

Thank you for the advice justaguy. I will probably amend with a very small amount of lime, small amount of cow manure, mushroom compost, worm castings, compost, and marine cuisine. I'd imagine there should be a considerable amount of bacteria and fungi in the soil, so hopefully as long as the pH is relatively close it should be alright. I picked up a Better Boy, Giant, Arkansas Traveler, Grape Tomato, and Sweet 100. 2 slicing cucumber plants. 1 Jalapeno pepper, 1 Italian pepper, and 1 Salsa pepper. 1 Squash plant/vine. Rosemary, and 2 Thai Basil (I had them last year and they smell delicious. kind of sweet black licorice), and parsley. Funny Story. I made the mistake of purchasing strawberry plants 2 years ago( in my first year attempting a garden), not realizing how aggresively they attempt to spread themselves. I did my best to do them in last year by barely ever watering them. I accidentally overwintered them this past year, honestly. I put a white painter type tarp over 2 of my kiddie pools, 1 pool contained oregano, the other over the strawberries. I removed these tarps about a week and a half ago. Much to my surprise I had thriving oregano and strawberry plants that overwintered. The oregano has taken up more than half of the kiddie pool it resides in. The strawberry plants spread like wildfire and now occupy basically an entire kiddie pool. So may actually end up with some fresh strawberries froom the garden this year, as there are many berries on the various chutes in the pool (probably about 50 fruit right now, some very small, some relatively large.). I use 10 kiddie pools filled with this mix, and 4 box style planters to provide homes for my outdoor garden. Thanks for listening all. Any further input/comments are welcomed.

I started using 5-1-1 for my vegetables and flowering annuals in 2011, so this is my third year. I have been so happy with the results, that I am growing more container plants each year. For example, i grew four tomato plants in 25-gallon smart pots in 2011. Last year i grew seven, and this year i am growing 10. So part of the answer is that I use some of the old mix to make up the mix for the new pots. I also grow about a dozen hanging baskets of flowering annuals each year. At the end of the season I dump them and the soil they grew in into my compost bin. At the end of the vegetable growing season, I remove the plants and their rootballs from my containers and add them to the compost pile unless the plants have shown any diseases. I make an exception for tomato plants, which i dispose of completely so as not to risk carrying over soilborne diseases. I remove the top 5-6 inches of mix from each vegetable pot and use it like a mulch under shrubs at the edges of our yard. The last couple years I decided to leave the rest of the spent mix in the smart pots with a layer of shredded leaves on top. When spring arrives, the mix has reduced to fill about two thirds of each pot. I remove about half of the mix from each pot and use it as an addition of about 2 extra parts to the fresh 5-1-1 I make for new plants. Then I mix controlled release fertilizer and gypsum (for calcium) into the old 5-1-1 in the pots. I top each pot off with fresh 5-1-1-2. I have used the spent soil left over after all this to "hill" potatoes in large containers and to create a few small raised bed garden plots in my yard for things like garlic, herbs and flower bulbs. I grow almost everything in containers because my small yard is surrounded by black walnut trees that poison the soil for most of the things I want to grow. If I could add the used 5-1-1 to a raised bed, I would. What I do may not be ideal, but it saves me a little money and effort and it satisfies my Scottish sensibilities.

You shouldn't have to depend on soil fauna for aeration, it should be built into the soil and you should be sure that the soil is able to remain structurally sound enough to ensure that it will retain adequate aeration for the intended life of your planting. If it will not, you invite those several issues associated with a collapsed soil and you should be thinking seriously about replacing it and turning the old into garden/bed/compost pile. Also, it's best if you resign yourself to the idea that you, not the medium, is ultimately responsible for the plants' nutritional needs. There is nothing the earthworm can offer in containers that you cannot find in other organic or chemical products. In short, their contribution to a more rapid deterioration of a soil that is already well advanced in it's structural collapse is not something I would welcome. Cut/pasted from another of my posts: 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. Al