Are you out there, Bencjedi? Would love to hear a report on how your worm cast fertilization observations turned out. I'm kind of assuming that your worm castings included little worms and eggs, right? If we use 'soil' rather than 'mix', it gets too heavy because there are no worms for aeration. The 'mix' to me means dead soil, and not best for the plants to thrive. I'm following with interest the Australian 'wicking worm beds' where a worm feeding station is incorporated into the planter. You can check it out at http://www.easygrowvegetables.com/html/easygrow.html I sure would love to have some of you folks try the worm stations in your EarthTainer systems and let us know how it affected plant growth.

Suggestions / questions for v3.3: In Step #12, what's the purpose for inserting that lid cutout into the bottom of container #1? In Step #15, the 3 5/8" hole and the 1/4" "pegboard" holes are being drilled into the bottom of Container #2, correct? (The angle of the photos for 15 and 16 make it difficult to tell if this is Container #2, or just a lid? It may be useful to show Container #1, the aeration bench assembly and the cut-down Container #2 (with the wicking basket installed) side by side, then show how Container #2 fits on top of the bench assembly. I'm assuming that the weight of Container #2 (once it's been filled with 130 pounds of media) is supported by the bench assembly and the screws / washers connecting the two? How movable is the structure once it's been filled with media? I'm concerned that if the container needs to be moved once full, any lateral motion can cause the bench assembly to buckle, and once that happens Container #2 will just collapse down into Container #1 because it will only be supported by the side screws, tearing the plastic and crushing the wicking basket. Would something like 2 ea 4" diameter SCH40 PVC, cut to a height of 5" (or whatever) and placed in the bottom of container #1 provide greater vertical structural support, and also reduce the chance that the two 3/8" pilot holes from Step 3 become clogged, preventing water from flowing into the wicking basket chamber area? If 4" PVC are used as columns then the wicking basket will be free-floating in the water at the bottom of the container. Move Step 13 so that it's right after Step #4? That way you're doing all the jigwsaw cuts at the same time on Container #2. Perhaps indicate that another pilot hole should be drilled for this as well, except it's only going to be used in order to cut away the 1 3/8" section so that Container #2 + wicking basket aren't sticking up above the rim of Container #1? If you change the name of the PDF file so that it has the version number embedded then browsers won't present a cached version of the document. (When I clicked the link, because I had already downloaded v3.1 and the new document had the same name, my browser helpfully just showed me v3.1 because the names were the same. If the new document was called "EarthTainer-Construction-Guide-3.2.pdf" it wouldn't have done that.) Thanks, Bob

Yeah those kids are smart as hell! I plan to get the tubing to make it happen just as they show in their videos. Not all teens sit around playing video games and texting I guess. ;) I grew up on a real farm and texting wasn't invented yet (and cell phones were too pricey for any farm kid to own). I just had video games, but they always took a back seat to school and working for my family. Yup.. we both shared "The Yellowing" of our plants. So far so good with adding that sifted pine bark and more perlite. I cannot remember the initial proportion of peat to vermiculite to perlite that I used for my base soil medium, but I remember it was said the proportion that Miracle Gro uses in their non Moisture-control. The only reason I made my own (which was a lot of work) was because I had 5 Earthtainers to fill and it was cheaper in the long run and I didn't mind getting my hands dirty. I mixed this in the 3:2:1 ratio (soil medium:pine bark:more perlite) for this year's mix. Anyhow you're probably asking about the fertilizer mixes, so for that I used 1 measuring cup of OLD Tomato-Tone + 1 cup of NEW Tomato-Tone for the fertilizer strip (in a 30ga ET). I blended those together and laid the strip. Then for EACH tomato hole I put in approximately 1 cup of my homebrew worm casts. My worm bins are very simple. Take two 5-gallon buckets, drill 3/8" holes randomly through the bottom of one bucket (50 holes or something). Fill this bucket with shredded paper (junk mail, paper bags from fast food and credit card offers are what I use). You will want to moisten the paper and squeeze the water out like a sponge, so it is just damp. This is the worm bedding. Add this and then next add worms and organic matter like banana peels (primarily my worm's major source of material). I use red wiggler worms provided by a class I took a few years ago at UK. Put this bucket inside the other bucket which will serve as the outer bucket to catch whatever drips from the worm's activity above. I use that worm leechate on my Blueberry bushes. Also get a lid for the worm bucket bin. The worms get enough oxygen by lifting the lid every now and then to toss in more organic waste for them to work the bacteria off of. I've gone weeks without lifting the lid. The hardest part of the worm bin is collecting the casts 6-8 months later. I can describe that process if you want. Here's what my bins look like: From 050509 Harvesting: From 022810 From 022810

Love your corntainers! This year, I am attempting to grow corn in a non SW container. Looking at my stalks, I do not have high hopes. They are only about three feet tall and do not have any sign of ears developing. I planted Silver Queen and judging from the the corn fields in the area, I am far behind in growth. Not that I was expecting ears in early July, but I thought they'd be taller by now.... I have serious corntainer envy..... :)