Hi, rina. I know wood chips are different than bark, but I saw a nursery that was using these mixed with some alder saw dust. In about a year it turned to this incredible black, rich "soil". The guy as the nursery said it breaks down better and more nutritious for the soil and depletes less nitrogen in the process. The wood chips I was seeking are about the size of medium bark in nurseries. In retrospect, I am glad I didn't try that. Works great outdoors, not sure about containers! The black bark is essentially composted evergreen tree bark. I say evergreen because it could be a mix of a number of different types here in the Pacific NW --- hemlock, fir, ceder, spruce, etc. I didn't screen it, it seemed plenty loose initially; small to medium size in comparison to bagged nursery store bark. It would have been o.k. had I added the peat and perlite per the formulas given here. Screening would have left just the larger pieces, but that would be quite a chore for the volume I was using! I repotted some of the plants using the 5:1:1 formula with my black bark and those are doing much, much, better. A gardening friend said "Think of it...bark is like big saw dust. If you pack it down it gets as hard as a board". That is essentially what happened when I used the black bark alone without the the perlite and moss. ;(

Exactly, the paper i pasted from describes the same phenom you have been describing for over 10 years. I have always raged that the big greenhouse media suppliers claim that 30% perlite into a peat is a high porosity mix. And so many growers prefer short squatty containers [helpful for blow over prevention but nothing else] Container Geometry is almost as important as the mix. i remember in 1984 I took a 400 level greenhouse management course at University of Delaware. The prof soaked a rectangular sponge and held it by the edges parrallel to the sink flatwise and let water drain, then he rotated the sponge on the shorter vertical axis and more water drained, when that free drainage ended he then rotated the sponge vertically in it tallest plane and more water drained. When I read your suggestion about using a draping shoelace as draining wick to lower the PWT the distance of the wick, I shouted YES at the elegant simple brilliance. In 1977 I grew a marijuana plant in a milk crate full of gravel, the stalk was over 2 inches in diameter [no different than growing in glass.] BTW, in your gritty mix what are the ratios and actual particle size for each component? I would think to use slightly larger particle sizes than i think you were using and i would probably consider using zeolite or a calcined DE or calcined clay. BTW, Ep minerals makes several absorbents both DE and Clay, Calcined or regular as various spill absorbers available in any auto parts store. 5o pounds for about 10 dollars. Don''t know the particle sizes but likely need to be screened to eliminate the fines. The clays are generally calcium bentonite and not sodium bentonite so less sodium and less swelling. I beileve Arcillite and Tuface are calcium bentonites. I was just thinking that decomoposed granite and even bark add no water holding capacity but with DE and Proper sized ceramics you could add more waterholding capacity but still maintain the airspace. The airspace in the ep mineral clay was pretty low when I measured it last, but I did not screen it. Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with AFP, WHC, TP, TPv, etc for over a dozen components and mixes. I have run quite a few in both 16 oz and taller 32 oz cups, [1 liter exactly when filled to rim overflow which makes that size intuitively easy for all the math. I think i found your posts about 3 years ago and then lost them. Am I correct in thinking you have some water release curve data around somewhere. Someone posted some WRC showing that Axis DE or perhaps the Axis clay media held huge amounts of water but easily released over 75% to the plant. TI can not find that post. I was actually searching for Vertical hydraulic conductivity, Capillary Rise and Capillary rate and wicking when your links showed up. The axis DE is like $90 a bag for 50 pounds so i think I could more cheaply reproduce from other products but have to screen. where I live in idaho, there is a Celatom DE plant less than 60 miles away, 2 zeolite mines, a sodium bentonite mine, WHC and Airspace mid 20s in the 2 larger particle sizess. Also the best white pumice [Hess] source mine a few hours away. I had hoped better water holding capacity. I plan on rerunning all the mixes again in a few months now that i have more standardized my process using multiple cup sizes, some of them tamped or shaken to settle, some top watered, some bottom water, measure distance of subsidence if any. I also have a vegetronix tensionometer now and will take additional measures at various depths to measure the exact tension and also verify depth of pWT which i can usually see through the transparent cups if I use a marking dye and saturate from below. Anyway I will share those spreadsheets in the near future If i were to guess, you have some sort of plant and soil science background or some civil engineering background and a love for plants. At any rate, your explanations and examples are some of the best I have ever come across, and your shoelace suggestion is brilliant, truly. i read so much WRONG advice or the wrong analysis for reason why something works or does not work. it is refreshing to come across accurate information Garret Goyette

The safety of the containers is the priority for the choice of the location. If you read "How to Winter Sow Seeds Outdoors", you'll see that my primary reason for placing containers up on the picnics tables is because our dear puppy had found them stashed beneath shrubs, pulled them out and shook them all to death. Obviously, in my garden, back then, the ground was not a safe location. The ground near walkways may also not be safe--spouses with snow shovels or snow blowers may not see the containers under deep snow and they'll get shovelled up and away or ground to pieces with a snow blower. Also, children, teens, and especially collegians seem to have size 13 boots and those size thirteen boots can, late at night and in the dark, accidently kick those containers aside. So what to do---on the ground or a table? That's up to you as only you know your garden better than anyone else. Will your containers be safe on the ground all winter long? If you don't have foot traffic or curious pets and critters then most likely yes your flats will be safe on the ground. If you can't answer that question with a 100% --yes, they will be safe,-- then they need to be elevated. If you use a small plastic greenhouse it must be vented to allow warm air to escape. You DO NO WANT WARM AIR in your flats. Heat is the enemy of seeds. Overheating can raise soil temps high enough to cause cellular damage and prevent germination. Overheating can also "steam" seedlings as well as rapidly dry out the soil from evaporation. Rather than cut holes into the plastic of the greenhouse then just find a way yo keep the front open enough to allow sun-warmed air to escape. Roll back a flap and hold it in place with clothespins. T Here is a link that might be useful: How to Winter Sow Seeds Outdoors.

Marcy, I bet the tanks look gorgeous painted with that hammered copper paint. I thought about painting this one, but it is in our three-year-old granddaughter's 'Peter Rabbit' garden and she wants to paint everything in it, including Peter, a really hot pink. I think hot pink looks great on a Barbie car, but not necessarily in an old-fashioned-looking garden, so I have tried to avoid painting anything until she's old enough that we can negotiate some color other than hot pink. She does understand that the picket fence we're working on will be painted white (currently the whole garden only has deer fencing, but we'll work on the white picket fence soon....just as soon as the cool-season harvest slows down a little. I have to tell you that planting the potatoes was a fun experience. I bought some kind of organic purple potato in late autumn or early winter. I believe it is Peruvian Purple. I left the potatoes in the root cellar (aka to sane people as an in-ground tornado shelter) in a brown paper grocery bag and pretty much forgot about them. In February or March, while looking for something else, I found them. Those little 3" potatoes had grown big long purple shoots right up to the top of the brown bag. So, the only place to plant them was in the tank. We put down about 8" of potting soil, set the purple potato 'trees' on top of that soil and carefully backfilled around them with more soil and then watered it well. We planted ornamental sweet potato plants and petunia plants around the rim of the stock tank later on after the weather was a bit warmer. I am pretty sure we'll get a great yield of potatoes since they're in great soil, and the darn plants are now about 3' tall above ground, and a good 18" deep down in the soil in the tank. They are monsters. That's a good thing though....I want her to have a great harvest in her first year of gardening. So far, all she's harvested are strawberries and snap peas, both of which are foods she likes to eat. She understands she's got potatoes growing in the 'swimming pool' as she calls it, and she knows french frieds are made from potatoes, but I'm not sure what she'sll think of purple potatoes. There are many "cute" plants in her garden, including Hansel eggplant and Gretel Eggplant, and Tomatoberry cherry tomatoes (because the fruit are heart-shaped), Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow container tomatoes, and lots of pink and purple flowers, among other things. I love growing in stock tanks and need to get some more. Growing in containers is so much better than the monumental amount of amending needed by our red clay soil, although I do that too. About 5 years ago, I got one of my 'old rancher' friends to try planting tomatoes in molasses tubs. As a long-time home gardener who was then in his early 80s, he didn't seem that crazy about the idea but gave it a shot. He has been very, very pleased and now that he's in his late 80s. it works out very well for him. He put his tubs up on an old table so he doesn't even have to bend over to plant them and he positioned them where they get shade during the hottest part of the day. I believe he told me a few weeks ago that the only tomatoes he planted this year were in his tubs. I like container gardening more and more and more...the more I do it, the more I like it...and I am not even close to being in my 80s yet. lol Dawn