This is a copy/paste job from something I left on another thread a while ago: In my estimation, the only convincing 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 (any one'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 medium 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

Hi - I am in 6b and grow nearly year 'round now (whatever I can get away with!). You should start (now) planting things in trays to be placed in the beds when the tomatoes etc. are done. Suggestions would be chard, cress, broccoli, and lettuces of all varieties. You can be succession-planting your lettuces in small patches all Summer and into the Fall. Smoosh it in anywhere you have a small spot. Carrots can be planted BENEATH the tomatoes right now. Add more carrot seeds every 2 weeks in a different spot. Make it easy on yourself and do just 12 carrots under each tomato plant. Then when the tomato is dead snip it off at the soil line, do not yank up the root and disturb your carrots. Ditto beets, turnips and mustard. The mustard can be started in trays now if you wish, and do another batch in a month - it likes to mature in the cool weather. Turnips must get planted directly - again, find a small spot somewhere. All of the root veggies will keep nicely in the ground for gradual harvesting even after several frosts - cold improves the flavor. And don't forget radishes which only take 30 days to a harvest. Arugula is another great crop that loves very cool temperatures and you will be eating it 3 weeks after you plant - it comes up practically overnight. Start some "corn salad" also known as "mache" at the end of August and transplant when you have a spot ready. This produces smallish rosettes of elegant salad greens and it will re-sprout in the Spring. Don't forget spinach - start some in trays end of August and you should get a nice harvest by frost - also if you do not yank the root out the Bloomsdale variety will re-sprout in Spring too - so you get double duty. There's a lot more but this is just off my head at the moment. You will basically need to commit to starting seeds in July/August if you want to be ready with small transplants once those spaces are available.

Prediction for my area tonite is 30. But daytime definitely feels like spring! Here in Hunterdon County, I really need to stick with May 15th for planting out tomatoes and peppers. Ellen

Hank, I have grown tomatoes for 25 years on my own, and grew them with my parents and grandparents for virtually my whole life, and I have NEVER had such a bad weather year for tomatoes....although there were a couple of rainy years in the 1970s that came close to being as bad as this year. Tomato yields were affected negatively by the weather in several ways, including: 1) Very Late freezes, including some very late sleet and snow, killed a lot of plants that were already in the ground. The colder soil temps then drastically slowed down regrowth and stunted the plants. This is the worst thing that can happen to tomato plants...even some of the ones that survived remained somewhat stunted and slow to produce. 2) Excessively wet weather impacted tomatoes in several ways, but primarily by keeping the soil so waterlogged that the roots could not grow. In addition, continuous heavy rains leached nutrients out of the soil big-time, so even the plants that survived sitting in waterlogged soil were nutritionally deprived and grew slowly for a long time. 3.) Excessive humidity made pollen sticky, causing it to clump and slowing down/preventing pollination. 4.) Excessive clouds slowed down both the growth and ripening of the tomatoes that eventually formed. Any single one of these four factors is enough to really mess up your tomato production, and having all four at once is highly unusual. I would say that we are unlikely to ever see such awful tomato-growing conditions again, but.....this is Oklahoma, after all, and our weather will do what it will do. Hopefully, though, we will have a better year in 2008 for growing tomatoes. As you learned this year, planting tomatoes at the earliest reasonable time is very important in our climate because we have such a brief period of time in the spring when the nights are warm enough for pollination to occur and the days are not yet too hot to slow down/stop pollination. I tend to plant too early as opposed to planting too late, because most years I can cover up plants and protect them from a late freeze, but you can't do anything to counter the effects of the heat. If you are only going to have 8 plants next year, you probably want the ones that are most productive, so you get the most tomatoes possible in the space you have. If I were growing eight plants and I wanted maximum production for the space available, I would probably plant these: 1. Better Boy--heavy production, excellent disease resistance, very reliable, good to great flavor 2. Jet Star--heavy production, good to great diseaese resistance, usually reliable, good to great flavor 3. Early Girl OR Bush Early Girl OR Early Girl Improved--early tomatoes, good disease resistance, good flavor. Of the three, Bush Early Girl always gives me the most tomatoes per plant. 4. Fourth of July (simply COVERED in 2 to 4 oz. tomatoes all summer long)--Very early producer that continues to produce all summer long, excellent disease resistance, and fair to good flavor. Please note when I describe the flavor as fair to good that they are not bad at all--and certainly taste better than ANY grocery store tomato. They have typical or average hybrid taste, and if you have never had the wonderful flavors of heirlooms, you would think these are perfectly fine. It it just that I am spoiled by the wonderful flavors of all the heirlooms, but most heirlooms produce 1/10th of the yield that Fourth of July will give you. Bloody Butcher is an heirloom that reminds me of 4th of July although it has not been quite as productive in my garden. 5. Sweet Million cherry OR Husky Red Cherry. You probably only need one or the other of these. Husky Red Cherry is a short internode plant. Sweet Million can easily get 8 feet tall if caged or trellised. Sweet Million will give you an abundance of smaller cherries. Husky Red Cherry will give you fewer, but larger, cherries. 6. Porter is a small tomato that is larger than a cherry but NOT a round beefsteak, more of an oval salad type. Fruit are reddish-pink and these plants produce all summer long no matter how hot it gets. They are very disease resistant and VERY heat/drought tolerant. 7. Burpee Porterhouse will give you the huge, tasty red tomatoes of your dreams. New on the market and one that has greatly impressed a lot of tomato maniacs. 8. Celebrity. Chosen for its outstanding disease resistance and reliability. If you could squeeze in 2 or 3 more, SunGold is a great golden-orange cherry that produces in about 57 days, Cherokee Purple and Black Krim are heirlooms that give you some of the tastiest tomatoes you will ever eat. Dawn