1. You won't want the sand, dirt or clay in the container. You don't say what kind of sand, but if is the small particle stuff like play sand, don't use it please. What you want are larger particles to promote good drainage. This thread explains in detail. Given what you have on hand I would say the peat moss and perlite would be your best bets and then go with an 8" deep container as it will support a low oxygen, water saturated layer at the bottom(you will understand this better after reading the thread linked to above). This mix will also be fairly light compared to say, clay and gravel. I would have said to just use the potting soil mix you have, but the term is vague and I don't know what ingredients are in it. If it looks like a really nice, loamy dirt, don't use it. If it is mainly peat then go with that. If you got really lucky and it is mainly small bark pieces, definitely use that. 2. The herbs don't need any more protection than anything else does from the wind, but dill can get fairly tall (2-5' depending on the variety). It is a fairly 'airy' plant so doesn't catch the wind all that well, but I generally try to have other plants propping it up or something the prevailing winds can blow it into and stop further movement. Again, the dill will likely survive the winds, but it can be blown such that it is now hanging well over the container instead of remaining upright. In terms of it being edible, this won't matter, but if you want a 'neater' appearance you might care. I am really not sure how to support it all that well in a deck railing scenario. 3. The dill and other herbs won't be stunted in the container at all assuming you use a sharp draining potting mix and fertilize a bit. In fact I think you may find the opposite to be true. Many herbs seem custom made for container growing as many ground soils are too wet and in zone 4 too cold for them to do optimally. In a container neither needs to be a problem. Some of the herbs you can manage their size by pruning (using) them, but I wouldn't do that with dill. I don't know if you just want a little dill every now and then or if you want a lot, but if you prune the dill to limit it's height you are going to reduce the amount the plant produces and they don't really produce a lot per plant.

Chives like a well trained soil and don't seem to like a full sun exposure all day. I grow a wild onion (just recently found this out), that is just now forming small bubil clusters at the tips of stiff stalks. Mine grows all through winter and in the summer months only the bulbil clusters are activing growing. I pluck all of these off once they have formed and crumble them ito the nearby soil around the rest of them. They will then die out in mid August, but start back up in late September and all through the winter months in Z6. These are quite hardy and when I pull up the bulbs in the soil they are about the size of a garden pea. The greens are great while they last, but the stiff stalks are tough as they must support the bulb clusters which are about the size of a large marble. Mine have no real flowers per se, but will have maybe one of two on each bulbil cluster. These tiny bulbs are tan color, and the edible greens are exactly the same size as a regular chive. Last year I sent out several of these to people who asked for some, as they can grow very well in cooler climates all the way to Z8. That ground cover with purple flowers looks very much like creeping phlox. I have it draped over the stone wall in front of my house and its blossoms last only a few weeks in early May to early June.

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Here are the tomatoes I picked. If anyone knows what I should expect from them, please let me know. I'll write what my expectations are after each one so you can chime in if you think differently. 1. Wessel's Purple Pride- purpleish medium sized 2. Big Black Heart- beefsteak, red on outside, dark red in middle 3. Green Zebra Cherry- GWR cherry, striped with some other color 4. Cane River Paste- I should use it for making spaghetti sauce 5. Dana's Dusky Rose- medium pinkish 6. Yellow Boar- large yellow, maybe beefsteak 7. Strawberry Margarita- light red, small slicing-salad-grape sized, maybe a bit of a bite 8. Roger's Best Black-deep reddish black slicing 9. Homestead Flynn's- red slicing, good producer I took home a Black Cherry from the swap and I have a volunteer red cherry of some sort from last year, plus there were two plants in the Yellow Boar cup. So I have 12 tomato plants in all. Please excuse the greenhouse/storage facility. It is going away soon and I'll eventually replace it with a storage unit with opaque walls. I decided to have a base to the container garden that I didn't have to weed-eat. So I went scrounging. I layed down a 10 sheet layer of newspaper and then rolled out weed mat on top of it. The area is lined on the sides with treated 1x1 and on the ends with a hollywood bed frame. More 1x1s are in the center on either side of 1x6 boards for a walkway. The bed frame and lumber should hold the newspaper and weed mat down unless we have a tornado or something. I drilled 12 holes in the bottoms of each of the 18gal tubs with a 1/4" bit. Found those tubs at Walmart for $4 each!! I filled the tubs with Al's 5-1-1 mix (5 parts Green Country Pine Mulch, 1 part pearlite, 1 part Sphagnum Peat, 1T lime per gallon and 1/2T fertilizer per gallon. I used granulated Osmocote until I ran out and switched to VegetablesAlive.) I stole the fence posts from last years' veggie bed. How convenient that I had 10 fence posts and 10 tubs! The 10th tub has the black cherry in it. The extra red boar and the volunteer cherry are going to have to find another spot. I also bought some herbs while I was chatting with Gary. I got pineapple sage, stevia, thyme, oregano, and pennyroyal. I haven't decided where to put the pennyroyal yet but everything else is in the container. I also put the oregano from the swap and the rosemary I picked up the other night in there too. The extra red boar tomato is hanging out in there until I get another spot ready. So that's where I'm at now. Any suggestions are happily welcomed! I've never had a garden that I would consider successful so I'm doing things totally differently this year.