Welcome to the growing number of gardeners who find gardening in wooden boxes very rewarding. I'm not sure if the Search engine is working, but there are numerous previous posts on this subject. If not, then just ask away. You probably will be getting many, many suggestions for the best way to treat your particular soil/gardening problems, and the nice folks in these forums can be very helpful. (just ask me how I know). Anyway, my solution was to have 9 cedar boxes to grow veggies in - (I wish they were all the same size now) - but the best dimensions seem to be 3 ft across by 6 to 9 ft. long. This is so one can reach across to pull weeds, plant, etc., and also have room to maneuver wheelbarrows or mowers around. They are without bottoms - but I nailed a piece of galvanized hardware cloth on the bottom to prevent burrowing voles, etc. One nice thing, they can be placed directly over existing grasses - so no need to dig below, any grass will be killed off from lack of sunlight. Soil - whether you grow in boxes or directly in the ground, a good porous soil is necessary. I recommended the box method above, if your soil is clay, hardpan, cement, sand, etc. Plants like compost, manure, peat moss, vermiculite, etc. to keep them happy. Many folks make their own soil - visit the Soil Forum for good ideas there. While not always easy to find material in the beginning, it can save a bundle if you make your own (leaves/grass/shredding). Otherwise, top soil can be had - check your landfills - they sometimes have free mulch, etc. If you intend to work your own soil - then adding compost or composted manure would also be beneficial, also deep digging if possible - to break up the existing hard soil clay/cement/hardpan/etc. Many older gardeners prefer the alternative box gardening to avoid this. You mention keeping watering to a minimum - this would also be ideal for that as well. Tomatoes and peppers love heat to ripen - so their biggest need in summer is to keep them watered. This is only a starter for ideas. But feel free to tune in again, whenever you have specific questions. The folks in these forums are only too happy to pass along their helpful ideas. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

"subk3 - have you read the posted link? Me thinks not." Well I read the part where it said "ban the sale" and "place a moratorium." Which part do you think I'm missing? And how long do you think it takes the Federal government to do a review? Because of drought conditions I have a specific weed problem in about 30 acres of pasture that will respond to one or two treatments of the aforementioned class of herbicide OR 4 or more applications of a herbicide with a much shorter half life. Anybody think spraying 30 acres 4 or 5 times with a less effective chemical while managing appropriate grazing rotation for the livestock is either insignificant in terms of the cost of fuel, product, man hours or organization and timing? I manage and personally use my compost from the animals that graze these fields and as long as I'm aware of the herbicide situation I have plenty of use for the resulting "bad" compost--just not on my gardens. And taxcrusader I think it depends on your definition of compost as to whether "everything" ends up as compost. If anything that comes out of the back end of an animal is compost then yes your are right. If you narrow that down to waste that is specifically managed then used to promote vegetation that may be tender than that's a whole 'nuther ball game. That class of livestock waste if very, very small. I've been in the horse business 30+ years. I'm one of the very few I know who purposely composts stall leavings with the intent of a specific end product. The vast majority of stables I know either pay to have it hauled to a landfill--this happens closer to urban/suburban areas (Yes, cringe, I know) OR they spread it on their own fields--a case where the residual herbicide can have effects a farm manager likes! OR lastly they dedicate an area and just pile the stuff up to deal with much later. None of those situations have it coming in contact with the tender plants it's a problem for, and that's the overwhelming majorty of stuff that comes from the back end of a horse. I live in a very horsey area. I know of two businesses that create and sell compost from horse leavings. One is a huge horse boarding facility that also produces their own hay so they are controlling the process from the beginning. The other contracts with only a few stables to collect and haul it away--I don't know how they manage the quality of hay intake--but they have told me it's a 2 year process from start to finished product which may help the situation. "Labeling" will not solve this problem and any government official who thought it would is an idiot. The problem arises because the composter is usually at the end of a long line of vendors away from the guy who read the label in the first place. A typical bale of hay could be sprayed and cut, sold to a distributer, who sells it to a merchant like a farmers Co-op who sells it to a barn owner who sells the resulting leavings to a composter. With several possibilties of additional middlemen. Educating livestock owners/farm managers is closer to the answer. I participate in a horse forum much like GardenWeb. It's a much more educated group than the average horse owner and the folks on that board are completely clueless that this is a problem. I did not learn about it until I came here. It isn't the chemical. It's using the chemical without knowing its end destination--which is simply inappropriate use. If I paint manufacture used a toxic chemical in the manucturing process that they didn't know how or where it would end up that would be a problem too. I don't see that this is much different.

Brian, I agree with Teresa to get a bulk load of compost more than you think you'll need really because it will shrink especially if you plant in straight compost. If you don't have your own soil to mix with it you could get a load of top soil to mix in. To save $ you could use some of the free horse manure advertised around the south end as well as lasagna layers of compostable materials. Build your own compost pile for your fall use or you put at bottom of your boxes if not hot manure, but not fully composted then top with the finished compost/soil mixture you create. Expect shrinking as the compost decomposes. I'll post what we did on the NWGardening forum instead of here. Corrine

I don't know, I haven't had that happen to me. The Helpful Gardener site said something about if you don't post more than once that they will delete your account for being inactive, which seems extreme to me. I just logged into my account there (same name: tanya117), I didn't have any problems so far. The way that they treated you seems very wrong. You might try emailing them at: admin@helpfulgardener.com to see if you can get them to restore your account.