I'm new here and just read that long thread on container drainage and now have some ideas for improvement. I always recycle soil. There is no way I could possibly mix new soil for my entire container garden each spring and expand it. This year I have already bought over 130 40 lb. bags of dirt for the installation of new planters! And that was a lot of work. My big wildflower containers which are 8'x2'x12" deep hadn't been changed in 4 years. In the fall I amend the old soil with compost, get rid of the old plants and rootballs, loosen it up, and plant the seed. For containers that don't have perennials, in the spring I empty them into my dirt mixer (which is one of those large Rubbermaid storage things I found in the alley a bunch of years ago), add some compost and new soil and perlite, mix it up and it's ready to go into a new planter. So far I found Menards to have pretty decent dirt and I've tried dirt from all the places around here. I mix one bag of their cheap topsoil (which is pretty good with very few clayballs) with one bag of potting mix with 1/2 bag of mushroom compost and a coffee can of perlite. It may not be the best soil but it works. I grow wildflowers, veggies, herbs, and only a couple of annuals. Last fall I had a big ficus tree and a 2 year old rosemary that I grew from a seedling die on me after bringing it inside last fall. I now think my soil mixture and lack of drainage had something to do with that. These discussions here have been very helpful and I'm going to experiment using wicks and maybe there are other things I can add to amend the soil to make it better.

Some foods from the store come with one-piece lids in a mason size and thread shape. For example, coconut oil and some kinds of spaghetti sauce. I can with those lids, and I use them multiple times. They have much thicker seal than the flat lids sold for canning. Thicker even than the one-piece lids that used to be sold for canning back in the 80s. I wouldn't use them for low acid pressure canned stuff, of course. I don't think I've ever reused a flat lid, but I would consider it if I just needed one or two more lids for a low acid product like applesauce. I would pick through all my old lids and choose the ones with the best looking seals, the shallowest grooves from old canning. I posted a question here a while back, about some new jars with lids that had been stored on a warm porch where they sealed and unsealed themselves many times. When I pried the lids off, they had visible grooves. But I was advised to go ahead and simmer them and use them, and I didn't have any trouble with them. Again, high acid, BWB only. Edit: I mean, the one piece Lids from the 80s were marketed as reusable. Up to four times, if I remember correctly.

You need to call your city permit office and verify that you can pull a homeowners permit for the work. If its okay with them, these are my suggestions: - Buy or borrow two large pipe wrenches. If you need more leverage you can usually slip a large diameter pipe over the handles to get more leverage, but on gas pipe that should not be needed (water and radiator pipes are harder to get apart) - You need to use black pipe and fittings - no galvanized (galvanized is for plumbing). - Use pipe dope/sealant (sold in tubes), along with teflon pipe thread wrap to ensure a good seal for all threads. - Your inspector may require you to install a pressure gauge and show it will hold pressure. They sell the test gauges at HD and other box stores. You usually pump it up to about 15 psi with a bicycle pump (way above normal gas pressure!) and show the inspector it will hold pressure. - Your permit office may require you to show a gas riser diagram with the BTU requirements for each gas appliance. What this really means is they want to see the diameters of all the pipes and how they are run to the appliances. They will use the gas pressure info from the gas company to determine max BTU your pipe can support, and then add up all the appliance draws to ensure you have enough flow. For example, you might have a 1" gas pipe coming in, which T's to two 3/4" pipes, which might T again to two or more 1/2" pipes. Bruce

Good question. Squash vine borers are looking for hollow stems that they can penetrate to deposit their larvae. Not too many plants with such inviting stems. Brassicas can sometimes have hollow stems, but the stems are pretty tough. I don't think an SVB could get in them. I guess dahlias and daffodills have such stems, but I've never heard of SVBs attacking them. You do have to wonder how an SVB knows it's sitting on a penetrable squash stem. Must be something about the smell that they like. Here! Dig here!