glib : Thanks for remembering, and yes, I will live there part time probably from June to Nov or so, although I will visit weekly during the off season. Wifi controlled irrigation and webcam will have to be my best friend. gumby_ct: Currently leaning towards salad green, tomato etc plus potato and Asian vege. Some fruit trees but no common crops like wheat, corn, rice, etc., For our own use only and give away to friends etc.,

OK, I've taken a deep breath. Several, in fact. And realized I've seen just about everything I want to plant this year, growing somewhere in my neighborhood. If a plant needs well-drained soil, I'm ahead of the game. If it needs moist, well drained I'll need to pay close attention, water and mulch well. Maybe I'll put a few more in containers - I need some height, anyway. Some will do well, some won't. There's nothing really different there from what I was expecting. These first years are going to be about experimenting and learning. CSU should be a reliable guide for the soil. As Gilda put it, never mind. Excuse the doom and gloom newbie gardener. Well wait a minute, what about over-watering . . .? Bob

@rifis I took a better photo now that I have daylight, attached. I think the layer above the silt is just organic compost that has sunk to the soil surface. So my conclusion is that most of this sample is coarse sand and silt. The silt is indeed dark. There was a lot of compost I had to scrape out of the top of the jar. But that compost was not the horrible sawdust material you find in nursery soil. It was very small particles of bark and other organic matter that had maintained its structure. That organic material may have been imparting some nutrition to the soil, and those containers were not getting fertilizer. Regarding the other poster who said this would be a good container soil: you should be aware that this is a controversial topic in the container gardening forum. Most of the purists will insist that coarse sand - added in too high a percentage of the soil - will create strong capillary action and raise the perched water table. My experience has been that plants largely thrive in sandy soils, as long as you do not mix in substantial amounts of microscopic compost and manure. That said, I use sand for experiments and my main soils for containers are gritty mix, 5-1-1, and I have experimented with various other mixes depending on whether the plant loves wet feet or not. For cactus and many Euphorbia I use pure pumice.

the general suggestion with BAD clay soil ... is to use a loose friable soil on top. and plant high ... so as to create proper drainage ... and to give the transplant time.. to put its roots down into the clay soil ... clay soil in and of itself is not a bad soil.. nutrient wise ... its the potential for improper drainage... that might cause root issues... not allowing the transplant to survive long enough to adopt to native soil ... having no hands on experience with your clay soil ... i dont know what to tell you to do specifically... but the usual default is to plant in native soil ... if you can get away with it ... but ..... planting under old well established shrubs can be hard in the sense of water competition ... and if you dig.. every root of the elder you cut.. WILL be replaced by new feeder roots.. in the hole you dig.. probably faster than your babe can grow its own in that hole ... [this is the reason digging holes under maples is so problematic] ... so in this example.. planting in a berm of new soil.. might give the babe a head start ... hows that for beating around the bush.. and not giving you an straight answer.. lol.. pun intended ... thats the variables.. you figure out how to do it in your little slice of heaven.. keep us posted .... as you usually do ... ken