Chemical (synthetic) fertilizers aren't unavoidable in containers, I think many of us just see no point to them (though many of us do use organics for our in ground gardens). You described the problem of using organic solids such as manure/compost in that it will clog up the spaces between particles as it breaks down. This isn't a huge issue if you already have a mix with superior drainage and the amount of organic matter is kept low (let's say 10% of the total volume), BUT, the nutrient benefit isn't going to be reliable or significant. The soil food web is definitely another potential problem in a container. It isn't that you can't have bacteria, worms etc, it is that it is difficult for most to maintain a working population due to rapid environmental fluctuations in containers. pH, moisture, temperature all swing wildly in containers. If you think about how the soil food web are built up in soil we add organic matter and often mulch the area to make the environmental fluctuations less drastic. Many have hopped on to the no till bandwagon so as to not disturb the critters in the soil. Even if you did build a potent soil food web in the container, think about what they are going to do. They will attack every organic component of the mix including the bark and peat and thus the soil will structurally collapse before it needs to. There are those who grow organicly in containers, some post here from time to time. I have not read any of them to say it's particularly easy to do well and I recall one person who assembles a mind boggling number of ingredients to make a good mix and then tosses it in the garden each year due to it's collapsing too much to reuse. You certainly can do containers organic if you wish though. Blood meal isn't something I would use in a container because a little goes a very long way and it all becomes active nearly immediately. The risk of over fertilization would be high. Bone meal I also wouldn't use because it takes a long time to release nutrients and would likely have been flushed out of the container before that happens. If you wish to use teas I see no problem with that, but if you are willing to use diluted urea why not just use Miracle Grow or any other liquid fert with urea in it? I don't see the difference between organic/synthetic in this case. Just my thoughts. You can always do a few containers in a purely 'synthetic' way and some others in a purely organic way and see which you prefer. No harm in a little experimentation ;)

Here's a hint I've heard alot. Put a can in the area that you are watering. You will need 1" of water per week, at least for my area. 10-15 minutes may not be enough "rain". I have also been guilty of putting 2lt bottles of water, upside down without cap,into the ground next to the plant that I want to grow, If the plant needs water, it will pull water from the bottle.

Most of the time I am an organic gardner but not over iris borers. When I spot them I dig up the clump and cut out all rotted areas and trim the leaves to healthy parts and fungicide them. It postpones bloom for a year with some irises but not others. I do not dig up all the clumps not showing a problem however for most seem healthy and usually I do not get the borers back again for many years. What is bothering me this year is slugs and snails all over the iris. Never had that problem before and that might be from rain, rain, rain so I stomp, stomp, stomp the offenders.

Brittany, Welcome to the forum. For planting dates, watch your weather forecast and watch what Leslie is planting and when. She's geographically closer to you than anyone else on this forum, I think. This early in the season, the overnight lows are more important than the daytime highs because we have plenty of pleasant days but still are having really cold nights here and there. It is easy to get excited about warm, mild winter days but we have to remember that the nights are still cold, and the soil temperatures still are pretty cold too. Most of us have very little actually growing in the ground right now. All I have in the ground right now are onions and perennial herbs. For plants that are grown inside and started from seed and then transplanted into the garden, you still have time to start your own seeds inside if you have the space and proper lighting or you can buy transplants at nurseries or big box stores. I bought transplants for years when I had a small garden and only started growing from seed once I had the space for a lot of plants. I know maybe you feel like you're behind, but you're not. Many of the plants we've started from seed and have growing indoors will not go outside and into the ground for another month or even longer depending on what the weather does. Have you measured the size of your garden? That's a good place to start. It will help you to figure out how much space you have, and then you can plot out your planting plan on paper and see if you have space to grow everything you want to grow. In our early years here, I drew out a scale drawing on graph paper so I could figure out where to put everything. Now that we've been here for quite a while, I just figure it out in my head, but in those early years, putting the plan down on paper was really helpful. Then, I'd suggest you do the soil jar test I've linked below. It will help you understand what kind of soil you have in your garden area right now. Then, if you have heavy clay that drains too slowly or sandy soil that drains too quickly, you can learn what you need to do to improve your soil before planting time rolls around. Understanding your soil will help you decide what you can grow. For example, if you have extremely rocky soil, it may be impossible to grow root crops like carrots and potatoes until/unless you remove a lot of those rocks. If your soil is dense clay and drains slowly, you may need to make raised beds if the garden that came with your house doesn't have raised beds, and that's especially true for plants like tomatoes and peppers that don't tolerate wet roots very well. If you have sand that drains very quickly, you may need to add organic matter to it to help it to hold moisture, but many plants grow well in sandy and sandy loam soils---and carrots, southern peas and melons of all kinds would love that kind of soil. Most plants will grow in most soils, but with sandy soils, there are often root knot nematode issues and with dense, clay soils there can be issues with drainage and root rot. So, understanding your soil before you start helps you make important decisions about what to grow and where to grow it. If you have very sandy soil, it is more important to chose vegetable varieties that have been bred to tolerate root knot nematodes since root knot nematodes often became a problem in gardens with sandy soil. Since y'all get hotter out west earlier than other parts of the state, you may find it challenging to grow cool-season crops. You may find that your region of the state warms up so quickly that the weather gets too hot too early for the cool-season plants. To some extent, I encounter that issue here in southcentral OK most years, so with cool-season crops, I try to plant varieties with relatively short days-to-maturity so the plants have the best chance to produce before the weather gets too hot for them. With tomatoes in particular, it is very important to choose proven varieties that perform well in southern parts of the country where the weather goes from too cold to too hot almost overnight. Tomatoes have a fairly limited time period here in which the air temperatures are in the right range for good fruit set to occur, so varieties with shorter DTMs usually do a better job of setting fruit early before it gets too hot. However, most tomato plants that produce small, bite-sized fruit will set fruit much later in the summer than plants that produce larger fruit. Last year, SunGold and Mountain Magic produced fruit well throughout the summer, even with temperatures over 100 degrees for 70-something days, and even when our high temp was 110 or higher. So, if you choose the right varieties and have some luck on your side as well, you can get a good harvest despite the weather. Mulching helps because it helps keep the soil temp lower and helps the soil stay moist, and some of us have had some success with using shadecloth fabric to reduce the mid- through late-summer heat stress on tomatoes and peppers. Remember, too, that gardening is a journey and not a destination so enjoy the process and be prepared for setbacks along the way. There's never a 'perfect' gardening year here because our summers are so brutal, but there are lots of good years. We all can tell you what we've tried, what we've learned, what works or doesn't work for us, etc., but you will have to be willing to experiment to learn what works for you in your climate and your soil, and you shouldn't be afraid to experiment. It is one of the best ways to learn. And, you need to know that what works one year will not necessarily work in another year. I have to make big changes to my gardening methods in wet years when my county gets 40 to 50" of rain, and have to be willing to make other changes to my gardening methods in a year when we only have 18 or 20 or 22" of rainfall. So, be willing to be flexible and go with the flow because in this climate, you have to scramble at times to keep the weather from destroying your garden. Sometimes, no matter what you do, Mother Nature wins. For example, you can have the most beautiful garden in the world, and then along comes a tornado (which happened to one of our forum members last spring) or a hailstorm or a severe downburst and it just annihilates your garden. While events like that can be incredibly frustrating, it goes with the territory when you live and garden in this part of the country. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Jar Test for Texture