I would suggest saving money and sourcing quality ingredients locally. Search this forum for threads by Tapla for more info. I would just link you to his series of posts, but am feeling lazy right now. Forced to choose between your 2 choices I would go with the Miracle Grow mix and completely skip the manure as it isn't going to do a damn thing for your plants in a container. Nothing. To do good you would need to add an amount that would suffocate the roots and likely burn them too. Use the MG potting mix (not soil) and follow it up with MG fertilizer (24-8-16) and you will likely have a very productive season for your cukes.

I use a mix of about one third to one half municipal compost to the remainder Pro-Mix BX, plus some time release fertilizer. You could add some lime too, but the municipal compost around here has a good amount of both calcium and magnesium. I think an 18-20 gallon toteful is about $1.25, a scoop dumped into the back of your pickup truck is $13.00. Pro-Mix BX w/mycco is around $18 for a 3.8 compressed bale, which expands to about 7.5 cu ft, or about 60 1-gallon pots. Hope this helps. Mark

I am using pro-mix for professionals that I buy from a greenhouse or a good garden center. To sow regular perennials or annuals, I use only pro-mix but when I sow more delicate plants such as alpine and rock garden plants, I use pro-mix and add grit or small vermiculite, half and half. The mixture allows a perfect drainage and it is easier when comes the time to divide the seedlings and transplant. Sometimes, especially for sowing paeonies, I use only pure sand. Using soil is dangerous as the seedlings will have more tendancy to damp off. If you need more help, you can contact me. Denyse, President of the Quebec Alpine and rock garden Society Here is a link that might be useful: Quebec Alpine and Rock Garden Society

If I were to use the raised beds, one of the crops I would plant in them would be tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants (not necessarily all in the same bed). When Preparing Tomato bed apply 3 lbs. of tomato tone per 50 sq feet and work into top 4”-6” of soil. I found a PDF for tomato tone, and these are the instructions it gives for how to use it: For Single plants mix 3 T (tablespoons)of tomato tone into the soil when planting For potted plants, mix one part tomato tone to 30 parts soil mixture (1.5 cups tomato tone for every 8 quarts of soil) FEEDING: Apply tomato tone after plants are well established (10-14 days after planting) and then twice a month during growing season (May-Aug) ROWS: 1 cup each side per 5’ of row Single Plants:3 T per plant Potted plants: Apply 1.5 t per 4” diameter pot (1.5 T per 12” diameter) The thing I am confused about is it doesn't give any instructions for how much to use in a raised bed; the closest I get is 'apply 3 lbs. per 50 sq feet'. Is the area of a raised bed (by 'area' I mean how much soil it can hold) square feet or cubic feet? I am pretty sure it's square feet, but I can't remember, so I wanted to double check to be sure. Also a really dumb question but what do you mean by 'top soil'? There are bags labelled 'top soil' and other bags labelled 'potting mix' (potting mix would more akin to miracle gro/something similar). Which one should I use? Also how much can you actually grow in a 4' x 8' raised bed with plants? I realize this depends on what you're growing in the raised bed but for me it'd be veggies. The veggies (no I am not growing to grow all of them at once nor am I going to grow all of them in the same bed) would be: *Greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula, watercress, baby kale) *Brassicas (cabbage, napa cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli) *Root veggies (turnip, daikon [large white Asian radish], carrots, potatoes) *Zucchini *Winter squash (only one variety, butternut) *Tomatoes (slicers, cherry, and romas/paste) (please specify how many plants, both trellised and untrellised I'd be able to grow in a 4' x 8' bed; most of mine are indeterminate varieties, but some are determinate varieties, specifically the cherry tomatoes) *Eggplant *Peppers (both sweet bell and hot chile varieties) *Snap beans (bush type) *Snap Peas (both pole type and the variety that don't require trellising) *Herbs (flat leaf parsley, rosemary, basil, culantro [it's similar in flavor to cilantro but it's NOT cilantro, it's much stronger in flavor]) Also I am wondering, can you grow corn in a raised bed? I know it's generally not advised to grow it in a raised bed, but the variety I have is a dwarf type (by dwarf, it's 2'-3') and says right on the pkt that it can be grown in containers.