Sammy, TOMATOES: With tomato diseases and soil, there are so many variables that your questions are a little hard to answer, but I'll do my best. I grow my tomatoes in the same beds (and also in the same containers) every year, and have for the 11 years we've been here. I do enrich the soil by adding compost and other organic matter as needed, and I always mulch heavily with various products, including grass clippings, hay, straw and chopped/shredded leaves. The mulch adds more organic matter to the soil as it breaks down, so that organic matter is being added year-round as the mulch decomposes. I put some organic Espoma Tomato Tone fertilizer in each planting hole as I set out tomato plants, and usually a handful of bone meal too. How much do my plants struggle with foliar disease given that I grow tomatoes in the same soil every year? Well, first of all not as much as you might expect, and it seems almost entirely dependent on the weather conditions. In a wet and rainy year where humidity levels stay high and the plants have dew on them virtually every day, I'll usually see early blight beginning in late June or early July. If the rain is really heavy in April or May, I may or may not see some bacterial speck or bacterial spot although they're usually a minor issue if they are an issue at all. About 1 in 4 or 5 years (and 2009 was one of them) my plants will have issues with Septoria Leaf Spot. In a dry and droughty year, which is probably at least 2 out of 3 years here in southcentral OK, I might or might not see a little Early Blight in June or July, but that's about it as long as I keep the plants mulched well (including mulched pathways) and water only with soaker hoses or drip irrigation. For what it is worth, none of the other gardeners who live and garden near me in Love County rotate their tomato plantings either, and most of them don't add organic matter to the soil or mulch like I do, relying on chemical fertilizers instead. They seem to get enough tomatoes to make them happy, although I rarely see any of them getting the higher production that I get from my plants. Because they don't mulch and most of them water using sprinklers, those plantings usually exhaust themselves or become diseased and are pretty much done by August, although some of their plants remained productive into the fall this year. If you have other types of disease issues like some of the wilt diseases or Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl or Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, then crop rotation might be more important, but I rarely see those here so it is hard for me to comment. It is my opinion, Sammy, that you could continue to use the soil in your containers and just keep adding amendments, particularly compost and perhaps also one of the rock powders and perhaps some bone meal. Mulching the containers with 2-4" of organic matter will help reduce soil splash which often transfers diseases. Mulching the ground around the containers also helps reduce soil splash. Water with a hand-held hose or a drip irrigation line to keep water off your plant foliage. For people who grow in the ground, the Earl's Hole method (linked below) of soil replenishment works just fine. As far as I know, Earl continues to grow his plants in the same area every year and gets some of the highest yields of fruit per plant that I've ever heard of, and I think that is due to his use of the Earl's Hole Method. You could adapt portions of his method and just add the needed ingredients to the existing soil in your containers. Some people who grow in containers like to spread out a tarp or a piece of heavy duty plastic, pour all their soil onto it, and add their amendements to that soil and then refill the pots. That is a lot of work, and I usually don't do it that way. I just add my amendments to my containers and stir them in by hand a week or two before I transplant the tomatoes into them. To tell you the truth, I ignore those people on other forums who insist you must put all-new soil in containers or rotate your in-ground plantings every year. I haven't found that to be true at all in our climate here in southern OK nor in northcentral Texas when I lived there. Perhaps in some parts of the country, the soil replacement or rotation are absolutely essential, but not here for me. People in every region have different gardening issues and much of it is related to their soil or climate conditions, so what some people find necessary in some places are not necessary in other places. COMPOST: One way to compost leaves is to just poke a lot of holes in the bags to facilitate air flow, wet down the leaves good before you close up the bag, and then seal the bags of shredded leaves using twist ties or twine or whatever. Pile the bags in an out-of-the-way place like behind a garage or shed or someplace else where they won't be an eyesore, and leave them there. By spring, the leaves will be partially decompsed and can be mixed into the soil or used as mulch on top of the soil. You can make an attractive compost bin for your compost pile in many ways, using wood, lattice, etc. If you use lattice and want to keep squirrels out of it, line the lattice compost bin with 1/4" hardware cloth. Out here in the country on larger parcels of property, it is easier to place compost piles and bins in out-of-the-way locations where you don't see them from the house. So, a lot of people here pick up old pallets and build compost bins from them and that works fine. I use round woven-wire fencing formed into cylinders 4 or 5' across and just fill them up over the growing season. If you use this method, you can plant morning glories, hyacinth beans, black-eyed susan vines or moon flower seeds in the spring and they grow all over the cage and hide it during the growing season. It is easy to use a large trash container or extra-large rubber storage container as a compost bin. Just drill lots and lots of air holes in whichever container you use, and leave the lid off when it rains so that the contents of the container receive adequate moisture. You don't have to leave the lids off all the time but they need moisture from rainfall or the waterhose from time to time. If you're concerned small rodents will get into the containers, line them with hardware cloth. I'd drill holes (and lots of them) in the bottom and sides of the containers to facilitate air flow and also good drainage so excess moisture doesn't remain in the container. APHIDS: I'm clueless on this one. I don't know enough about how they overwinter to help you on this one. Have you seen lady bugs eating the aphids? In general, lady bugs feast on aphids and I have a healthy population of lady bugs so I rarely see aphids at all. Sometimes aphids appear on container plants I overwinter in the garage, but if I am patient, lady bugs show up 7-10 days later and take care of them. If the aphids are in your compost pile, it ought to get hot enough to kill them, but I can't quote any research that says that it will. We have hackberry trees in our woodland but the wooly hackberry aphids haven't made it here yet, so I have absolutely no experience with them and don't know how similar or different their behavior is compare to that of more common aphids. Good luck and keep asking questions. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Earl's Hole Method of Tomato Bed Soil Replenishment

Missouri and Purselane, right after the hail storm I intended to save the plant, but then saw how large the base of the agave was getting and was afraid it would break the pot. The only way to save the pot was to remove the plant which couldn't be done w/o cutting it up. I have pups I saved from it before it went into the pot so it is not gone forever. Again, thank you all for all the great plant suggestions. After the roofers are done I'll be deciding on something. Right now have to start moving 'stuff' out of their way, LOTS of 'stuff'! Oh what fun ... lol

Yeah, that type of contamination wasn’t really on my radar when I originally constructed the beds. But a couple years ago, mostly because I was concerned about possible lead contamination from my garage and potential leaching from the concrete blocks I used, I bit the bullet and spent a substantial sum for a heavy metal analysis. The soil appears to be uncontaminated, so in that respect I’m not worried. Toxcrusadr, exactly. And what drives me crazy is that our drop off site has several bins for trash, yet people still throw their garbage in with their tree and brush trimmmings. So frustrating! As to my root barrier, what I am gradually doing is digging a 3 foot trench (with a trenching shovel) around the edge of the beds. I then put sheets of 3 x 3 aluminum on the side of the trench closest to the beds. After that I put in several layers of bricks to hold it in place and as an added deterent. The remaining space between the bricks and the soil is filled with a mixture of rocks and rock salt, and then the soil I originally displaced. I really wish that I had done this when I made the beds (they are sunken hugel beds so I had already dug them out to about 3 feet when I contructed them). My issue is red cedar trees, which the former owners planted in wretched abundance. We have removed the ones in close proximity to the garden, but even the ones at the other end of the yard will creep in. The roots can grow at least a couple feet a year, so until this is finished I’ll be digging out roots for a while.

I can't throw it out, I feel like mother nature made our paths cross for a reason..haha! I read online scale can be easily transferred from plant to plant. I have some extra room where the plant won't be around any of my other plants so I will try to treat it. If they don't go away before fall when I have to bring my plants in then sadly I'll have to kick it back to the curb.