I go with the idea of scrounging whatever you can from wherever you can. I frequently find bookcases on the side of the road during "curb shopping" expeditions - they're usually particle board with cheap lamination, and most often the back has fallen off, which is why they're being disposed of. Take those home, throw them down on the ground, fill them up with the soil mix of your choice. They look fairly neat. In a couple of years, of course, moisture will make the particle board fall apart; at this point, you can take the bed apart, peeling off the veneers and trashing those. Then you get a new bookcase, put the half-composted board at the bottom of it, refill with soil or lasagna layers or whatever, and start over. Or you can put the particle board some place near your compost bins where it can moulder away and be added as browns when it crumbles. Eventually it will be compost. (Particle board shouldn't be burned, but composting is a slow and safe way of dealing with it.) Don't go buying new ones for this purpose; but reducing the bookcase to a small wad of veneer and a bunch of organic material is much better than putting the whole thing in a landfill, IMO. Cabinet frames and old drawers do nicely, too, and provide varied heights for interesting design (and raising plants to comfortable levels). Plain wood bookcases last longer if you can get them, but don't use painted ones - the paint flakes off and gets in the soil, and you have no way of knowing whether there's lead in there or not. Plastic "milk crates" can be used to support cardboard boxes full of soil, or even brown paper bags. After harvest, dump all the used soil, complete with the crumbling remains of the paper, into a pile, refresh it with some compost, and put it into a new box. You can rearrange the boxes easily. Plastic swimming pools with holes in the bottom are also good, as long as you don't mind the "blue with little fishies" look. If you do mind fishies, stack used bricks, stone or broken concrete around the pool to hide it. You should never, ever have to pay for any of this stuff - plenty of people throw stuff away every day that can be repurposed and saved from the landfill, at least for a while.

I found a nursery in Lexington, KY that can order a 4-cu bag for around $18, but would have to add it onto their store's regular supplies order to their distributor, so it will take 3-4 weeks before my bag arrives with their order. Posting for price-comparison reasons. :) Vermiculite is not a native mineral to Kentucky. According to a book picked up with a google search, the mineral distribution for its deposits occur in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennyslvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. ..just in case any curious minds wonder where this mineral is concentrated and mined for commercial\industrial uses. :)

I found bulk expanded shale in Minneapolis for $71 per cubic yard. It's bulk so you need a truck or trailer. That's $2.70 per cubic foot. Note: 1 cubic yard = 27 cubic feet = 202 gallons Best vermiculite price I found locally was $15 for a 3 cubic foot bag, that's $5 per cubic foot. This is the place: http://www.cellularconcreteinc.com/Lightweight_Distributing.html It took me a week to find it. 30 emails and 10 phone calls. The concrete industry isn't quite as internet savvy as other industries. To help those looking for your own local supplier. Lookup a somewhat local manufacturer on the industry web page: http://www.escsi.org/Default.aspx Then see if they list distributors. I called a few to get someone to mention the name of a guy locally. I have a feeling it's in every major metro area, it is heavily used in construction.

Fayette Seed in Lexington, KY sells the 4 cuft bags of Therm-O-Rock brand for $18.99. Fayette Seed 731 Red Mile Road Lexington, KY 40504 Phone: 859-255-3334 Fax: 859-255-4300 Email: info@fayetteseed.com I'm from Riverhead NY. That is an awesome price for vermiculite SSYL! I need to talk my family back home to do a square foot garden (they have a deer problem in the garden out back and deem it a lost cause). A SFG next to the house would be so much easier for them.