I have made swc out of them and I've grown chard and parseley and cilantro in them. I'm using two of three again this year because they have gotten brittle with the sunlight last year and one was worse than the others. How to make them as swc? Cut a piece of straight plastic (I bought a rectangular trash can for a buck at a dollar store and cut the sides of it for my platform)that will fit a bit further than 1/2 way down. This is the divider between the water on the bottom and the soilless mix on the top. Get a plastic tube or a piece of pvc pipe that will go from the bottom to just past the top of your kitty container. Place this pipe on the one of the edges of the container. Cut a notch in the side of the platform so that the pipe will fit. This pipe is your watering pipe. Cut out the center of this notched plastic platform with an approx 2 inch diameter hole. This plastic platform will sit on a heavy plastic cup or container (I used a plastic peanut jar) that you drill holes in so that the water will flow into it. Fill this support jar full of peat. Center this support jar so that the plastic platform's hole is exactly over the jar. If you can, drill some small holes in the top of the jar so that you can use wire to secure it to the platform. Otherwise, you'll have to place objects on the bottom to hold the jar in place. Drill one hole 1/4" as an overflow just below the mid plastic so that when you fill up the bottom with water, you cannot overfill into the growing area. Use Al's mix or a soil less mix to fill up the top of the container. Drill 1" diameter holes in the top (I drilled 3, but you can do 1-3). Either place an inch band of Controlled released granular fertilizer on the top of the mix like 10-10-10 or use a good liquid feeding with a fertilzer that has additional micro nutrients. I've also used a little dolomite lime mixed into the top of my swc containers as peat tends to be acidic. I'm not one of the experts on this forum so I'd wait until you get more responses. Oh, and because of a lack of UV inhibitors in these kitty containers, they will become brittle by the end of the first season. But then, if you have cats, you'll have plenty of containers to use again next year! ~tom

You don't list what city/area you live in on Your Page so I will infer from the hot comment that it is Phoenix area, Tucson or Yuma. Assuming you used your soil for the garden bed it will be lacking in nitrogen and carbon and little else. IMHO no further supplementation is needed beyond adding a scoop or two of finished compost mixed into the planting hole between plantings and occasionally around any annuals that decide to grow into year 2 and longer. Hence the importance of maintaining a compost pile to make your garden produce even more cost effective. Anything else is a waste of money. The fish fertilizer ($$$$!!!!) is a great source of slow release nitrogen. As per the directions telling you to divide it up and add more often in hotter areas---nitrogen is volatile and will gas off so it needs to be replaced. The hotter the faster it evaporates. If you choose to continue fertilizing figure out the total amount likely to be added the entire season for that plant(s) divide the amount to add it in smaller amounts more frequently weekly or every other week. Keep in mind as well that some plants fertilizer should be discontinued at some point, others increased both to maximize yield. I get you want organic. Ammonium sulfate is a pure product, cheap and works well, especially if mixed into water. Just sayin. Over fertilizing or fertilizing past a point can be worse than under fertilizing. It can push vegetative growth instead of fruiting, increase pests. http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1020.pdf http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1005.pdf A good layer of organic mulch built up as the plants grow up (so you don't initially block them out or damage them) will preserve moisture, block weeds and cool the soil slowing nitrogen off gassing. Additionally the decomposition of the mulch while initially depriving the first inch of soil of nitrogen used to decompose the mulch the breakdown material will then release available nitrogen and carbon into the soil. Adding powdered soil sulfur is a good suggestion too to try and keep the pH as near neutral as possible. If those are small radishes consider growing them in trays. They produce so fast it is kind of a shame to take up space in a garden. Be sure to get a paper plate under each of the melons if they are not kept off the ground. Here is a link that might be useful: Ten Steps to a Successful Vegetable Garden

Most cat litters (flushable or not) are made from clay. Exceptions would be Feline Pine, Swheat and Yesterdays News. I spilled clean cat litter on my basement floor,then the washer overflowed, clay plus water equals slippery mud. Took forvever to dry out. I opened the basement windows and set up fans. Finally dry, I was able to scrape up the mess and dospose of it. Never ever ever put anything from a cat in the toilet. You will definitely ruin your plumbing as Dan 1954 explained. I scoop my cat box (I now have just one cat) every morning. Put the scooped stuff in plastic grocery bag, twist and put with my household garbage for twice-weekly pickup. May be bad for the landfill, but what else can I do with it?

Do you think that storing water for an extended period that you planned to drink or use for cooking might leach out some of the unpleasant chemicals in the plastic? I'd want to fill it with water, let it stand for a while, preferably in the hot sun, and use it to flush the toilet about a dozen times before I used it that way, I think. My landlord buys weed kller in about 4 - 5 gal. jugs and, after rinsing several times and letting stand a while in hot summer sun, I use them to carry water down to the other end of the garden, that I can't reach with the hose. Haven't heard any complaints from the plants, yet - or lost any. The cucumbers, melons and squash, plus tomatoes, sometimes suffer from blight ... but that's well after they've been watered from the jugs, a number of times. Suzie, if you were to get a piece of mesh with apertures of about 1/4" or slightly more and fit it into about a 12-18" square frame of wood, with a container to put under it, perhaps you could run the used litter over it and get another use or two out of it? Make a funnel of cardboard, or cut the corner out of a cereal box, or use a margarine/yogurt container to refill the jug. 'Twould be especially helpful if you could train the cat/dog to use one litter box for the one kind of waste and another for the other. First idea - straight goods. Second - somewhat tongue-in-cheek. ole joyful