Good. I often use words I know people wo9n't be familiar with because those who are most enthusiastic and interested in learning will look them up. Invariably, they will learn much more than the meaning of the word. A good deal of what I know came as a result of problem solving or trying to acquire the information to head off a problem. Sometimes you guys ask questions, my answers to which I need to make sure are accurate, so I'll check them against a reference. Again, invariably I learn something along the way. It keeps me off the streets, too. ;o) FWIW - I don't remember exactly what I started with in my RBs, but it was probably something like 5 pine bark 2 Michigan (reed/sedge) peat 1 sphagnum peat 2 play sand 2 Turface I included some micro-nutrient powder and a charge of 27-3-3 fertilizer, too. The more organic matter you use, the greater the shrinkage. Compost will literally disappear to nothing over 5 years or so, you'll need to keep replenishing it. There are other problems associated with almost all fine organic matter too, so I think you should be thinking in terms of at least a 50-60% mineral fraction (topsoil, sand, Turface ......), unless you use pine bark - then you can use less. In raised beds, the organic matter promotes lots of soil life, which helps with aeration and guards against compaction. In containers, soil biotic populations are tenuous, and you water far more often than you do in raised beds. Also, if you use the fine particulate matter in containers, it supports high PWTs that kill off the soil organisms, so you don't get the same benefit. If your container mix is compost and perlite, it will be extremely water retentive, unless the perlite is at least a 60-70% fraction of the mix. That's why I say you can't amend compost to make it drain properly. Once compost is less than 50% of the mix, you're using compost to amend the other ingredient(s). Finished compost is primarily lignin and some lipids, neither of which decompose all that quickly. The problem with compost in containers isn't necessarily that it breaks down so quickly, it's the small particulate size that supports excess water retention. If you decide to water in small sips to compensate for the water retention issue, you guarantee that soluble salts will accumulate in the soil unless you take regular steps to flush it. Again, it's not that you CAN'T grow in a soil based on compost, but it's much more difficult, your decisions are much more critical, and the margin for grower error is much narrower than if you were using a durable and well-aerated mix. Al

You are off to a good start. About the vermiculite/perlite, use the web to search your county for store that sale them. I found the biggest "Brown Turkey Fig tree" at the lowest price by checking the 3 closes counties to my house. Their were 8 nurseries & some of them were listing in all three counties. "various bags of" some of the bags at the big box store are Okay....maybe good, but you never know what you are getting & if it is composted. So stay with what works for you & start a grass clipping/ leaf compost pile as soon as you can. I am all for double dug beds or loosening the soil a few inches, before putting up walls to hold the compost mix. Love to see photos. Good Luck.

Dang'it Barbie - I was so looking forward to meeting you in the flesh :) TimeT - I grew up in gardening to learn to embrace the experiment; try different methods and see what works best for you. I have one small SFG that I am not so impressed with. I have other raised garden beds that I have 'made my own dirt' with that I'm pretty content with. Caveat - I am still learning :) My most productive raised beds are those that I started a season or two before I used them. Piled them up with cardboard/newspaper/yard debris/my compost/peat/black kow. Then let them sit and marinate. This always worked very well for me growing ornamentals; and thus far is working very well with edibles. I am finding with the edibles that a regular amendment routine is really critical for higher harvest gains. I try to rotate weekly between black cow, black hen or blood meal, 6-6-6, and our own compost. And mulch heavily. Then mulch some more. So far things are going fairly well; and I expect that as I experiment and learn I will change things and improve things. Oh, and my primary veggie bed is around 250 sqft. ~dianne

Reneesarah, I understand your situation completely. I'm new to SFG myself, so I started from scratch like you. I know when I first found out that a 6 inch board wasn't 6 inches, it was confusing. I actually built my beds from scratch with 3 2x6s high, or 16.5 inches high if I did the math right. For just over 130 SF of raised beds, the materials cost me almost $1,000 and I JUST put Mel's Mix in all the beds (6.5 c. yards worth), which I got a screaming deal on at $370ish, not including the sweat equity of mixing 6.5 yards of material and getting it to the beds. I had to really call around the Seattle area to find Steuber Distributing that had vermiculite and peat moss cheap. My local nursery wanted $28 a 3.5 c. ft. bag for vermiculite. I got it for $14.50 for 4 c. ft. If you want to see pics and read the whole story the link's below. Newgardenelf, I too had very skeptical help. My brother said he thought Mel's Mix would be good for seedlings but not for mature plants and was concerned that peat moss and vermiculite added nothing to the soil. Oh and they both do the same job to retain water and help drainage. I also heard the $500 tomato comment. If only I could convince him to read the book. hehe. And I have to agree, I hadn't thought about it, but it would be worth all this and more just for the enjoyment my kids get from it all, not to mention the fresh veggies we're all looking forward to. Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's gardening adventure