As I sit here listening to "I walk along the street of sorrow, the blvd of broken dreams....." I gotta admit what Paddy says is true. We (me and madmagic) met here, we fell in love the same way that me and flora and me and berry and me and, after you, dear alphonse, and my dear new friend bill, and whoops! I can't remember, right now, six vodkas in, who's my friend and who's them what find me annoying (I'm speaking Eliza Doolittle for flora), Well, I'm kim's only friend, so I've gotta be like the best one ever, don't you think? Ok, so I'm thinking hitting send after like six whatever they weres is not the best plan. I'm going to try to redeem myself two ways. Don't I type swell? a.) and b.) I spread a whole heck of a lot of annpat's pretty wonderful compost today. I planted peas, carrots, beets, borage (for the bees, alphonse) snapdragons (for the bees, alphonse), etc.

This has been a really spectacular read. I'm an environmental consultant in MA. Wetlands work, water quality studies, some rare species studies, various and sundry permitting issues, etc. I have a house in Boston with a postage-stamp-sized back yard that I am forever trying to squeeze as much produce out of as possible. I do get enough to have a giant harvest party every year, with homemade sauce for 30-35 people plus plenty left over for us in the later months. Good times. I discovered GardenWeb forums maybe two months ago and I feel like I've already doubled my knowledge. I'm so psyched to put some of these ideas into practice and see how things go. Thanks everyone for such great threads, ideas, and comments. Hope everyone is doing well. - Chris

dave, I always look forward to reading your posts. Regarding the cost effectiveness of the EarthTainer, you are absolutely correct, that a raised bed or traditional in ground planting is far more inexpensive. Here is Silicon Valley square footage for gardening is almost non-existent. I literally have a 5' by 18' raised bed - - and that was all the tillable space I had. Last year I was able to grow a grand total of 13 tomato plants in this space. With the 'Tainers this year, I am able to use sunny deck space, and other locations in the yard that wouldn't support in-ground planting. So I am now growing 46 tomato plants plus 4 'Tainers filled with corn. As I travel sometimes for 2 weeks at a time, I needed a "hands-free" watering solution and the Automated Watering System from the folks at the EarthBox Company fit the bill perfectly. I haven't touched a hose since March 22 when I planted out. As this part of California is about to be put under mandatory water rationing, the closed eco-system of the 'Tainer has got to be the most water stingy approach I could think of. I have found other benefits such as spinning the 'Tainer 180 degrees every 30 days, as this has encouraged a more symmetrical plant with better yield. Also, I haven't had a squirrel or gopher attack the plants this year - perhaps they don't want to scale the container walls. The soil temperature of the 'Tainer warmed about a month earlier than the temp of my in-ground bed, so I have been harvesting tomatoes since May 25 - something I have never been able to do previously. In terms of cost, the cages and staking are a wash when compared to in-ground planting. So the $23.00 for the base container system is the issue. As the "innards" of the 'Tainer are not exposed to UV, I am estimating a 15 year service life for it. I so anticipate that the Rubbermaid outer shell should last 7 years with careful use like rotation from the sun, etc. The Rubbermaid costs $9.97 at Lowes this week so that would work out to be about $1.50 per year amortization expense. The (optional) AWS worked out to be $6.25 per plant - - and in my view, saving me hours of weekly watering, this is the best $6.25 that I have ever spent in the garden!! Everyone has to weigh their priorities and tradeoffs with land availability, ROI horizon, and so forth. Yes, I did go a bit overboard in building 28 of them but I am quite happy I did so. Alley Cat, Yes, I agree and would love to find a basket of 3" by 6" with a depth of 5", as my ideal size, but exhaustive searches at houseware stores, the Internet, Amazon, etc. have not turned up such a size. joytwo, I experimented with "extreme pruning" on my early Stupice and as you can see, the tomatoes were both early and prolific. Not a pretty photograph, but as one said in another thread "Do you eat the leaves....or the tomatoes??" Raybo

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