There are times in gardening when you cannot choose the cheaper option. This is one of them.

Yes, it will negatively affect the plants. That is why the manufacturer specifically states not to use the purchased garden soil in pots.

The size of the container has nothing to do with it. I grow plants in a 200-gallon galvanized metal stock tank and it is filled with a soil-less growing medium. Any container, regardless of its size, should be filled with a soil-free growing medium. There are different formulas for mixing up your own growning medium and they can contain different ingredients, but for the most part they consist of specific ratios of specific ingredients that have been tested and proven to promote healthy plants and good growth. Most soil-less growing mediums contain pine bark fines (fir is used instead of pine with some specialty plants like orchids), peat moss or humus or compost or some combination thereof, perlite, a little lime to counteract the acidity of the peat moss, and other materials (composted manure, greensand, lava sand, blood or bone meal, etc.) as desired by the gardener or manufacturer plus some sort of fertilizer and usually a wetting agent.

The above materials are used because when mixed together in the right ratios, they both hold adequate moisture so the plants don't dry out too quickly but also drain well enough that the pots don't hold excess moisture and drown the roots. In addition, and this is the most important difference between soil and soil-less container mixes, they do not pack down hard and make it incredibly difficult for the roots to grow. Technically, plant roots do not grow in soil or soil-less mix---they grow in the air pores between the particles in the soil or soil-less mix. Because plants in containers are subjected to constant irrigation---either natural rainfall or from the water hose, the soil compresses and packs down a bit every time it is watered and that continually reduces the air space,compressing the roots tightly in the soil. Over a period of a few months, this is very bad for the plant roots. That is why soil is a no-no in containers.

Without knowing exactly what ingredients comprise the soil you put into the containers, we don't know how to suggest you could fix it.

The yellow leaves you're seeing are just the start and it will get worse. Right now, the weather conditions are perfect for gardening. Beautiful temperatures, all nice and mild (until tomorow!), not too cold nor too hot, good humidity, etc. Once the weather is hot and miserable, you'll really see what a mistake the garden soil was. Our summers are hard on plants in containers in a perfect soil-less growing medium. For plants in containers in soil, our summers are brutal.

If you want your plants to do well, you need to get them out of that garden soil and the sooner the better.

Dawn

I concur with Dawn. That's why we always talk about making sure one gets "Potting Mix" instead of "Garden Soil", which is actually formulated specifically as an in-ground soil amendment, not for container growing.

I'm so sorry - yes, the Garden Soil is cheaper, but it is the classic, you get what you pay for oops. The no-no is to never use soil from the ground in a container.

I wanted to cry the other day, my little granddaughter's papaw got her some cute little mini-trough looking containers to grow some seeds in. Now, I have no idea what seeds he gave her to plant, but I picked up the little pots to look at them and sure enough there was soil from the yard (more like mud), and the containers had no drainage holes in the bottom. Nothing was growing in it to say the least. I'm gonna have to sit her down and talk to her what plants need to grow well in cute little pots, starting with drilling some holes!

Susan

I used just the regular sta-green garden soil + fertilizer, so is that still considered a bad thing? It seemed like when I was putting it in the buckets that it had other things like potting mix does. Bark and other non-soil properties. I figured I'd be switching out the soil before summer really hit, so hopefully this won't hurt them horribly in the meantime, and then I can just dump what I had into my moms garden so it isn't completely wasted, lol.

So, it's OK for in-ground plants though, right? I've used it to plant quite a few things like strawberries, raspberries, and potato vines, along with starting seeds in ground and it seems to be doing pretty good.

Also, I was always under the assumption that air pockets in soil was a bad thing, and that there should be as much soil contact on the roots as possible. I suppose this is just a misconception?

Thanks for everything so far. I feel dumb for already buying the 4 bags of 2cu ft garden soil and using it without even knowing if it was safe. Guess I'll be hunting down some broken bags of potting mix next time I head to Lowe's.

Oh, and one more thing. Is there a big difference between Miracle Grow and Sta-Green? I've never had much luck with Miracle Grow, despite it looking like a better quality. But Every time I've ever used Sta-green, despite the lower quality appearance, it just seemed to work better under the harsh conditions here in Oklahoma.

Britt,

First, please don't feel dumb. The only way to learn what to do and not to do is to just do it or to research it well before doing it, although it does help if you follow the package directions since they exist for a reason. : ) I'm not saying that to be mean---just to remind you that the directions on packages exist for a specific reason and you're putting your plants at risk if you disregard those directions.

If the package said garden soil and did not say it was a soil-less mix for containers, and if the package said do not use in containers, then the previous answer stands---it is not the appropriate mix for plants in containers.

Any bag of garden soil you buy will have various components and without looking at what you have, none of us can guess what it would have in it. It is likely there is some peat and some fine bark in the mix, but if it is sold as garden soil, those are not present in the right percentage for container plants. Yes, you can add it to the dirt/soil in the yard/garden. That is what it is meant for.

Big air pockets in soil probably are a bad thing, but the plants need for there to be air space between particles so they can grow in that air space. So, you would want air space the size of the dot over the letter i or even up to the size of BBs, but you wouldn't want big air pockets the size of nickles or quarters. Without the air spaces, the soil packs down and compresses so hard that root growth is very limited. Soil like that is called tight, dense or compacted soil. The reason that native soils with a very high clay component are hard on plants is that the clay soil particles aggregate together into a very tight, compact and dense mess and do not leave much open air space for roots. Once you add organic matter like compost, pine bark fines, manure, etc. to the clay so it cannot compact so densely, it is a great growing medium for in-ground plants. Sometimes people go to a big box store and buy the cheap "Top Soil" in bags for a dollar or two per bag. That junk is almost always pure clay and not worth a nickle. At least you didn't buy that stuff!

The type of soil that is best for most plants is loose, fluffy soil that allows easy growth of roots. That is true of soil in the ground and even more true in containers. When I talk about the air space between soil particles, it is tiny amounts of air space. I just took soil-less mix out of containers that hadn't been changed out in two years, and even though I had started out with a great soil-less mix in those containers two years ago, you wouldn't believe how much two years of watering/rainfall had packed that stuff down.

I don't know if there is a discernable difference in the formulas of regular Miracle Grow and StaGreen potting mixes, but you should use whichever works best for you. I've used both and had good results either way, but I also mix up my own sometimes and like it best because I can tailor it to the specific plants I'll be putting in the pots. There are many brands of soil-less growing mixes out there, and most of the name brand mixes work well although there's a couple that seem to always have problems.

Dawn

Thanks for all the advice! At least my moms garden will enjoy all of this soil, haha.

If I were to make my own mix for my potted tomatoes, what would you suggest? I've never made any sort of potting mixture before. Is it generally cheaper to do it that way?

I can quite understand the prohibition against using garden soil when it is in fact soil--although for years I have been mixing a shovelful or two of regular garden soil into the mix for my large (5 gallon or bigger) pots and then throwing in a couple earthworms to work it. I do this on the theory that garden soil has trace elements that the commercial mixes don't have. It usually works fine for annual plants. I can even understand it when the soil is that wonderfully black tilthy stuff that is packed into bags in places like Ohio or Iowa and labeled Topsoil. (It costs more than a buck or two or bag, but it isn't clay)

What I don't understand is why buying the Miracle Gro "Garden Soil" and using a percentage of that in a potting mix won't work, because there isn't any soil in it at all. In fact the only difference on the label between that and Miracle Grow's Potting Mix is that the potting mix has added fertilizer and a wetting agent. The NPKs of the three bags I now have in my shed are MG Potting Mix .21% .07% .14% Iron .10% Scott's Hyponex Potting Mix .07 .01 .03 This also has added plant food and a wetting agent. (Obviously not as much plant food as MG.) And the Miracle Grow Garden Soil .1% .05% .10% with no added fertilizer or wetting agent. No added fertilizer at all but with better fertility than the Scott's Potting Mix due to the composted cow manure and chicken litter it contains. And the texture of the bags are all very similar, with no discernable soil in any of them. (This year's bag of MG still had a few too large pieces of wood.)

I don't trust any of the commercial mixes to get through an entire season here without added fertilizer so it seems to me the main difference would be how soon you would be seeing deficiency symptoms. (I favor compost tea for fertilizing my pots, but this year forgot to tell DH to hold out a couple five gallon buckets of compost to make it with.)

For years I have used Miracle Grow Potting Mix and was happy with it but got disgusted last year when 3 bags of it had huge housebuilding-timber-size hunks of wood in it. (One bag was almost half big chunks of wood) so I switched to Scott's. It didn't do as well. I noticed the plants showing signs of nutrient need so had to fertilize them more than with the Miracle Grow. I'm talking about the growing up pots I moved my garden veggies into before going into the garden.

Last fall I bought 20 bags of MG Garden Soil on sale expecting to get some more of that stuff from Iowa or Ohio that I had gotten before to add to some inground beds. After looking over the labels I decided to mix it into some large containers along with some of both the Scott's and MG potting mixes, finished compost, well degraded oyster shells and a couple shovelsfull of real garden "soil" aka "dirt" . I'll let you all know in the fall what I think. But I have already used it to grow garden veggies up with better success than with the Scott's but less than the MG.

I suspect that as with everything else in our modern world, there are laws regulating the labeling of Potting Soil, requiring that the added fertilizer and wetting agents must be included for it to fall into that category.

Listen to these people... they know what they're talking about lol. I used garden soil and topsoil mixed... I am still trying to fix the situation now. This semester is almost over so I will finish what I started then. Good luck and sorry you wasted money like I did on the wrong stuff. I get the ripped bags at Lowe's of Sta-Green potting mix and black kow compost. I have been mixing it 2 to 3 handfuls of potting mix and one good hand of compost. We shall see how it goes!

Lots of good advice above.
I have tried most of the various soilless mixes and have not found a whole lot of difference in the results (other than poor performance when I was mixing soil from my garden into soilless mixes).
The mix I like best is to use Jemasco Landscape and Garden Mix with Pro-Mix (about 1 to 1) with some added Osmocote- BUT I can not help but add some Back To Nature composted manure to the mix.
I have good success with the 5-1-1 mix, but I can not always find the pine bark fines,
although I found them at Springer Nursery this year, but fairly expensive (about $7 for 2 cubic feet).
This year I have bought whatever potting mix is on sale, then added pine bark fines, perlite, and small amounts of composted manure, lime and Kelp Meal. I then spread some Tomato Tone around the plants about once a month.
I may be fertilizing too much, since my tomatoes have huge leaf stems that I have to prune back.
Ron

Ron, One way to gauge whether or not you are overfertilizing is that if your tomato leaves take on a definite blue-green hue, then it is likely the plants are being overfertilized. However, if they are just a normal green and are growing well, then your huge leaf stems just happen to be what you get on really healthy, happy plants. I'm inclined to think you probably just have happy, healthy plants because you didn't mention anything like "all leaf, no fruit" or "blossom drop", which also would be symptoms of plants being over-fertilized.

All my life I heard that you should "never" use garden soil in pots, so I never did it. Finally, after we moved up here, I wondered to myself "what if this is one of those rules you can break?". I knew the only way to find out was to dig up some soil from the ground and try it. I tried to get the best natural soil we had, from the area where the one band of sandy soil we have meets the clay. I figured it would be a sandy-clayey mix. I put it in a 10-gallon container and planted a tomato plant in it. Then, I sat back and waited to see what happened.....

You know the rest, I am sure. The poor thing barely grew. When the container's soil was wet, it was slippery, slick clay muck and when it was dry it was sandy-clayey concrete. The plant barely grew at all, never flowered or produced a tomato and looked horrible....not a healthy green, but pale greenish-yellow with purple tinges. I couldn't bear to look at the poor thing. After that, I didn't have to wonder if this is one of those breakable rules. I decided it isn't. Someone with outstanding soil might get away with it, but I doubt it. Even great in-ground soil likely would compact down too much because it just wouldn't have enough organic matter to prevent the compaction.

Dawn

Dawn, I did the same experiment with the same results, so now would never use pure garden dirt in a container. In fact last fall, I dug a petunia seedling up out of the garden and plopped it into a small pot with the dirt it was growing in, intending to later pot it into a bigger pot into MG Potting soil. Well, I never got to it and it started blooming in the little pot in the greenhouse, so I set it outdoors this spring. I simply could not keep it wet. I could soak it good in the morning and by the evening it would be wilted down. It did bloom with about 20 white blossoms and I finally turned it out of the pot and tucked it back into the ground under a good mulch. That soil was packed solid. So I agree that that is an unbreakeable rule. Although as I said, I have been breaking it to a small degree--by mixing about 10% of my garden soil by volume into my homemade mixes. I also think it is important to put earthworms into containers and I have been doing that for years. As long as the soil in the container is damp at all, they will be moving through the soil creating channels and dumping castings on top. I also always mulch my pots, even the small ones, which breaks the force of water pressure.

However as I said, I couldn't find any evidence of true soil or dirt in Miracle Gro's "Garden Soil." Nor does the label list it. The only difference between that and the Potting Mix is the added fertilizer and wetting agent and the price. Which is why I added it to the mix I made up this spring along with the Scott's Hyponex Potting Mix--which I will never buy again btw--and MG Potting Mix. I also added homemade compost, some well rotted leafmold, some degraded oyster shells and that 10% of my well amended garden soil. I don't know how this would work in a permanent container. I used it for annuals and will dump the pots and renew the soil next spring. I know I will have to fertilize over the summer, but I always do anyway, letting the appearance of the plants let me know when they are hungry. I'll be back in the fall to let you all know how this worked out, but the only new things in my mix are the Scott's Potting Mix and the Miracle Gro Garden Soil, which I've never bought before, so if I have a failure it will be due to one of those.

Dorothy, I guess everyone should try it once just to see what happens.

I don't think it hurts if someone puts in a small percentage of soil like you do because the native soil would be a great source for all kinds of micronutrients and beneficial microbes too. I like the idea of putting the earthworms in large containers. I mulch my pots too. Sometimes I put earthworms in there, and sometimes they show up on their own. I often have frogs, especially tree frogs, in my containers, and especially in any containers that get afternoon shade. They scare me when they pop out of the middle of the plant unexpectedly.

I don't believe there is any true soil in MG's Garden Soil, but since I've never seen the contents of a bag, that's just a supposition on my part. I find it puzzling they sell it under that name. Since it is meant to be added to native soil to improve it, I'd label it as a 'soil conditioner'. Of course, the current soil conditioners on the market usually are just pine bark fines and humus and sell for less per bag than MG Garden Soil, so maybe they didn't want to label it as a Soil Conditioner because they were worried comparison shoppers would compare prices and choose to buy the standard soil conditioner.

I love mixing up my own soil-less mixes for my containers and do it all the time, trying each year to tailor it to the type of weather I'm expecting. I probably don't make it the same way twice. Usually when I have a failure, it is because I made it drain too well for the hot summer months. I hope your mix does well this year.

I haven't used Scott's, and I haven't bought Hyponex in at least a decade. The last Hyponex I bought was awful and I said I'd never buy it again and I haven't and I won't. I either mix my own or buy regular or Moisture Control MG or sometimes one of the other major brands, depending on what's available. Where I live, there's not a lot of options, but I can find a good variety of mixes if I go down to the metroplex and visit a nursery like Mike's Garden Center.

Way back in either the 1960s or 1970s, my Dad used to buy good-quality soil-less mix and use it to improve his black gumbo clay in the veggie garden area. I actually think Hyponex was one of the ones he used and it seemed pretty good back then. Of course, a lot of things have changed since those days.

This year I dumped some pots that hadn't had their soil changed in a while. Last year, it was so hot I never planted anything in them---but weeds and grass came up in them and grew in them all year or at least until they dried up and died. When I dumped out that soil-less mix this year, it was so compacted that it had the exact shape of the pots, which were square pots with a small square leg at each corner. I had a big square block of soil with a small square leg at each corner. It was a perfect example of how a couple of years of watering and rainfall will pack down and compress even a great soil-less mix.

Dawn

I was both puzzled and annoyed to find that MG's Garden Soil had no soil in it. I too thought that it should have been labeled differently. But like you surmised it is most probably market positioning. I have laid all three out on the potting bench to dry and honestly I can't tell the difference by sight, smell or touch between them. The main issue I had with the Scott's Hyponex was the lack of fertility. Being used to using MG's Potting Mix with those sustained release nutrients, I expected the same results from the Hyponex and definitely didn't get it. I had to fertilize my short term plants i.e. my veggie transplants--although the tomatoes I planted in Jan were in for over two months. So I went back to the MG Potting Mix hoping not to find any more lumber in it. (I'm not kidding. In one bag alone I found one piece that looked like a 2x4 almost 2 ft long and there were several smaller pieces in that same bag.) Actually if I had known the Scott's fertility was lower (and it's my fault I didn't as the NPK is clearly marked on the bag) I would have just fertilized from the beginning.

I don't have a lot of choice where I live either, so I really do need to read labels.

Well, this explains much.

My problem is: If I take them out of the stupid containers and put them in the ground, the ground is just as bad with the stupid clay.

Uncle.

Dorothy, That is so awful that you found such big pieces of wood in your MG potting mix. While I have occasionally found a larger piece of wood in there than what should be included, I've never found something that big. It seems ridiculous that their quality control is so poor nowadays.

Bon, The difference is that in the ground the plants can, if the clay is not too dense for them to grow, send roots out farther searching for moisture and nutrition. In a container, they are imprisoned within that container and cannot go outside of it to seek whatever it is they need. So, all things being equal, if you're trying to grow plants in poor soil, they most likely have a better chance in the ground than in a container. With gardening, it all starts with the quality of the soil or the soil-less mix and you cannot get outstanding results from poor soil. That is just the reality of how important the quality of the growing medium is. There is not one thing on earth you can do to make up for the poor growing medium---it has to be improved to give you the results you seek.

I work ridiculously hard at soil improvement. Probably 75% of my gardening time year-round goes to soil improvement. Is it frustrating to have to spend so much time on something that basic? Of course it is. There's a lot of other stuff I'd rather be doing, but soil improvement is essential and it must, by necessity, be an ongoing part of the gardening process. You think that at some point you will get your soil to that goal-line where you finally have good or great soil, but the truth is that in our climate, the heat breaks down organic matter constantly so that you always have to be adding more.

Having said that, clearly the soil in my garden is much better now than it was when we moved here in 1999. However, if I wasn't working so hard all the time to add more organic matter to it, it would revert back to its pre-1999 state in no time at all. Improving garden soil is a marathon, not a sprint.

Dawn

When I tell people that in the 28 years we've gardened here we've added almost 100 pickup loads of rotted sawdust to the garden area, they always look stunned. Part of it was free if we loaded, part was $5.00 a load and the mill loaded it. Now the free stuff is gone and we haven't checked at the mill for a few years. And all this is besides the grass clippings, chicken litter, and shredded leaves that we collect here. And a couple years ago the electric company dumped 13 loads of chips and by now a lot of that is dark and crumbly, more like compost than mulch.

I still wish I had a load or two of sand to loosen up the soil at the low end of the garden.

I sort of have 2 gardens this year. One is in my backyard in the ground and the other is in containers in the side yard. It is still so ugly that I am calling it the "ghetto garden". I think it has 16-17 tomato plants, carrots, horseradish, pole beans, strawberries and a few flowers. Since the containers are mostly just ugly black nursery pots, I will probably try to cover the front of them later to cut down on the heat, but right now it is working well. We are still staying in the 70s and 80s, and are 78 degrees at noon as I am typing this. The larger containers are big tree pots and six large square trash cans like you dump your trash into at the fast food places. LOL They hold a lot of potting mix. I had saved some very small sweet potatoes from last years garden and had put one down into two of the pots hoping they would make a vine to cover some of the ugly. I think it is going to work as they are sprouting nicely. I put one in a couple more pots after I saw that it seemed to be working. When I get some vine coverage maybe it will not be so ugly. LOL Actually, the tomatoes in the nursery pots look better than the ones in the garden, but some of them were planted earlier. Most have plenty of blooms.

Most of the tomatoes in the garden look good, but I have one that has been totally striped of foliage. I think I saved one to replace it with though. I had saved garden space for the tomato plants I expected to bring back from the fling, but I brought one extra. Three are now in the ground, but I need to find a spot for the other one.

During the strong winds and rain this week the onions in my raised bed have fallen over some, but the ones in the ground were in a more protected area so they look fine. I have had seven onions bolt and all but 2 were Supersweet. I planted about half a bunch of those and I think some were large, so that could be the problem. None of the Candy onions have bolted.

My peas look very good and the snow peas are producing but I haven't started picking. The Sugarsnaps are blooming.

I think I have 6 kinds of beans. The first ones are seeds I originally got from George and I planted the length of a cattle panel quite early this year. I got spotty germination so had to go back and replant in a few places but they are now climbing and some are almost to the top of the panel, but haven't done their heavy leafing yet. These usually beat the other pole beans by several weeks.

I had a lot of volunteer KW pole beans come up this year, and they couldn't grow where they were because I had moved the trellis. I moved them to a large pot with a tomato cage to climb on and they look healthy. I had other volunteers that I moved to another location in the garden where more were coming up. I have no idea what kind of beans those are, but they are still growing.

I planted a bed of Blue Lake Bush beans much later and they are about 6 inches tall now, and a double row of Roma type that still have not come up and I'm not sure they are going to.

I had a few beans left in two small packages that I decided to plant on some tripods that have been in place for a couple of years in my garden. They don't get much sun until mid-afternoon so I don't consider it the most desirable location for planting. Wouldn't you know, this is where the beans are the biggest and doing the best. I had only a few Emerite seeds left that Jay had sent me a couple of years ago. I planted what I had but everything that came up, came up on the same leg of the tripod. My plan is to try to get enough beans to replenish my seed stock. I think it is only about 3 plants but they are blooming with pretty purple blooms. Another tripod got Purple Pod Pole that I received from Dawn and they are going crazy. The tripods are short, but the beans have reached the top and are now growing across a string that I tied to the next tripod to give them something else to cling to. That is a really pretty vine. I think I have a full pack of them in my seed stash, so I will probably find a place to grow some more of these. They don't seem to mind that they aren't getting full sun all day.

I have a raised bed that has summer squash down the middle and radishes and carrots down each side. The radishes are just now eating size. This bed has Agribon over it and it is over some metal arches. They are not as tall as the ones we made this year, but are probably 2.5-3 feet above the bed in the center. I looked out the bedroom window and could see a squash leaf touching the top this morning. I planted squash seeds fairly early but I think the cover has been a big help to protect them a little. I was just trying to protect them from insects, but I think it helped in other ways as well.

Only my bell peppers are in the ground, but they are looking very good. I hope to put some other peppers in the ground later today and I have some additional seeds of other things I need to direct sow as well as start some melons and spaghetti squash to have ready when the spring things start coming out.

My brassica crops have taken a beating from insects, so I don't know how successful they are going to be. I'm not seeing as much new damage, so I am hoping they overcome the early chewing insect damage.

The potato plants look good, but they need to be hilled up, not because of potatoes coming above ground but because the wind has caused them to tilt and they haven't all straightened back up. I haven't had any insect problem on them, but they have not yet bloomed.

I need a full day to work in the garden, and I am hoping that tomorrow will be it. We went to court (not us, just moral support for someone else) on Monday, and Al has Drug Court tomorrow (he sits on the board), and today is my birthday, and Friday is our 40th anniversary, so it is a busy week here. I spent most of the morning on the phone receiving birthday wishes from friends and family and we will be headed to Red Lobster soon, which is my favorite place to eat.

All in all the garden looks good and seems to be ahead of most others I have seen here. The Spring insects took me by surprise and I had quite a lot of damage before I knew what was happening. I had Harlequin bugs and cutworms which I don't usually see, in addition to the normal slug and pill bug problems that I normally have, but they don't seem to be as bad now.

I sort of have 2 gardens this year. One is in my backyard in the ground and the other is in containers in the side yard. It is still so ugly that I am calling it the "ghetto garden". I think it has 16-17 tomato plants, carrots, horseradish, pole beans, strawberries and a few flowers. Since the containers are mostly just ugly black nursery pots, I will probably try to cover the front of them later to cut down on the heat, but right now it is working well. We are still staying in the 70s and 80s, and are 78 degrees at noon as I am typing this. The larger containers are big tree pots and six large square trash cans like you dump your trash into at the fast food places. LOL They hold a lot of potting mix. I had saved some very small sweet potatoes from last years garden and had put one down into two of the pots hoping they would make a vine to cover some of the ugly. I think it is going to work as they are sprouting nicely. I put one in a couple more pots after I saw that it seemed to be working. When I get some vine coverage maybe it will not be so ugly. LOL Actually, the tomatoes in the nursery pots look better than the ones in the garden, but some of them were planted earlier. Most have plenty of blooms.

Most of the tomatoes in the garden look good, but I have one that has been totally striped of foliage. I think I saved one to replace it with though. I had saved garden space for the tomato plants I expected to bring back from the fling, but I brought one extra. Three are now in the ground, but I need to find a spot for the other one.

During the strong winds and rain this week the onions in my raised bed have fallen over some, but the ones in the ground were in a more protected area so they look fine. I have had seven onions bolt and all but 2 were Supersweet. I planted about half a bunch of those and I think some were large, so that could be the problem. None of the Candy onions have bolted.

My peas look very good and the snow peas are producing but I haven't started picking. The Sugarsnaps are blooming.

I think I have 6 kinds of beans. The first ones are seeds I originally got from George and I planted the length of a cattle panel quite early this year. I got spotty germination so had to go back and replant in a few places but they are now climbing and some are almost to the top of the panel, but haven't done their heavy leafing yet. These usually beat the other pole beans by several weeks.

I had a lot of volunteer KW pole beans come up this year, and they couldn't grow where they were because I had moved the trellis. I moved them to a large pot with a tomato cage to climb on and they look healthy. I had other volunteers that I moved to another location in the garden where more were coming up. I have no idea what kind of beans those are, but they are still growing.

I planted a bed of Blue Lake Bush beans much later and they are about 6 inches tall now, and a double row of Roma type that still have not come up and I'm not sure they are going to.

I had a few beans left in two small packages that I decided to plant on some tripods that have been in place for a couple of years in my garden. They don't get much sun until mid-afternoon so I don't consider it the most desirable location for planting. Wouldn't you know, this is where the beans are the biggest and doing the best. I had only a few Emerite seeds left that Jay had sent me a couple of years ago. I planted what I had but everything that came up, came up on the same leg of the tripod. My plan is to try to get enough beans to replenish my seed stock. I think it is only about 3 plants but they are blooming with pretty purple blooms. Another tripod got Purple Pod Pole that I received from Dawn and they are going crazy. The tripods are short, but the beans have reached the top and are now growing across a string that I tied to the next tripod to give them something else to cling to. That is a really pretty vine. I think I have a full pack of them in my seed stash, so I will probably find a place to grow some more of these. They don't seem to mind that they aren't getting full sun all day.

I have a raised bed that has summer squash down the middle and radishes and carrots down each side. The radishes are just now eating size. This bed has Agribon over it and it is over some metal arches. They are not as tall as the ones we made this year, but are probably 2.5-3 feet above the bed in the center. I looked out the bedroom window and could see a squash leaf touching the top this morning. I planted squash seeds fairly early but I think the cover has been a big help to protect them a little. I was just trying to protect them from insects, but I think it helped in other ways as well.

Only my bell peppers are in the ground, but they are looking very good. I hope to put some other peppers in the ground later today and I have some additional seeds of other things I need to direct sow as well as start some melons and spaghetti squash to have ready when the spring things start coming out.

My brassica crops have taken a beating from insects, so I don't know how successful they are going to be. I'm not seeing as much new damage, so I am hoping they overcome the early chewing insect damage.

The potato plants look good, but they need to be hilled up, not because of potatoes coming above ground but because the wind has caused them to tilt and they haven't all straightened back up. I haven't had any insect problem on them, but they have not yet bloomed.

I need a full day to work in the garden, and I am hoping that tomorrow will be it. We went to court (not us, just moral support for someone else) on Monday, and Al has Drug Court tomorrow (he sits on the board), and today is my birthday, and Friday is our 40th anniversary, so it is a busy week here. I spent most of the morning on the phone receiving birthday wishes from friends and family and we will be headed to Red Lobster soon, which is my favorite place to eat.

All in all the garden looks good and seems to be ahead of most others I have seen here. The Spring insects took me by surprise and I had quite a lot of damage before I knew what was happening. I had Harlequin bugs and cutworms which I don't usually see, in addition to the normal slug and pill bug problems that I normally have, but they don't seem to be as bad now.

Dorothy, I should have known from watching my dad improve our soil every year when I was a kid that it would be an on-going project for me as an adult, but for some reason I long harbored the illusion that one of these days we'd improve the soil to the point that we were happy with it and could stop working so hard on soil improvement. Even my gardening friends are staggered by the amount of mulch I use every year and by the fact that it breaks down. They always ask "where does all that mulch go"? lol

We bought a load of sand once to help loosen up the tight soil. I think it was our first summer here. They dumped it in the back yard, and it took me a long time to move it to where I wanted it one wheelbarrow at a time...and then my gardening friends were so happy. It was like "Cool! Now you've fixed your soil." Oh man, if only it had been that easy. I told them I was only getting started. That first year Fred gave me a load of cattle manure (not fully composted so it brought many interesting weed seeds) and some big round bales that were 3 or 4 years old and really rotted, but great for mulching. I don't know how I ever would have been able to start a big garden without the kindness of people like Fred, Ken, Donna and David who always brought me their old hay bales in those days, and Jesse and Joyce who give me old hay bales now. Tree trimmers don't come through here very often, so there's not much opportunity to get wood chips here, but instead of burning brush piles, we pile up trees and brush in an out-of-the-way area and they decompose so I can eventually use them. It takes 10 years or more though, so that's a very slow recycling process.

Carol, Happy Birthday! Also, Happy Anniversary to you and Al on Friday.

If you have two gardens, I must have 4 or 5, and I do call them by different names so Tim knows which one I'm referring to....i.e. the Big Garden, the Driveway Garden, the Peter Rabbit Garden, the Container Garden, and the Barn Garden (which so far only exists in my mind but is close to becoming a reality). I don't have a Ghetto Garden, but I like the name!!! Oh, and there's the Dog's Garden, consisting of whatever squash, gourds and pumpkins sprout and grow on their dog yard fence each year after they've played with the Halloween/Autumn decorative gourds and pumpkins each fall.

I've been surprised by how well beans tolerate shade, as you've noted. For many years I grew them in full sun before I began eventually trying them with more and more shade after moving here. I think maybe it is because of our climate---a half day of sun and heat here might equal a full day of less intense sun and light in a cooler climate.

It sounds like your garden is doing very, very well.

These strong and sometimes gusty winds have been brutal on everything, but the only plants I've lost have been a few corn plants that were snapped off right at the ground. I'm used to corn lodging, but not snapping off.

I am not seeing as many pill bugs and sow bugs as usual, but the cutworms make up for it!

Dawn

Excuse the double post. I thought I was posting on the other thread. I couldn't find the post, so hit it again. Guess I now know why I couldn't find it.

Thanks Dawn, it has been a nice day, and I have had too much shrimp. LOL

Some people would say it is impossible to have too much shrimp. Especially on your birthday.

We ate a couple of things from the garden for dinner.

We had green beans--a combination of the varieties Tanya's Pink Pod, Purpuriat Romano and a gold romano bean called Capitano.

We had garden onions and tomatoes in our salad.

The main dish was Sour Cream-Smothered Chicken with Mushrooms. (Thanks again, Carol, for the mushrooms.)

I have three large containers to plant tomorrow and since it is drying out so much here, I bought bags of MG Moisture Control to use in them. At the rate I'm slowly filling containers and planting stuff into them, I'll be planting about 3 molasses tub containers a week every week all summer long.

Dawn, Glad you enjoyed the mushrooms and your dish sounds delicious.

I cleared the area tonight where the okra is going to be planted and tied up the six tomatoes that are supported from above and not caged. That was the only gardening I got done today, so tomorrow is going to be a full day.

I am going to be adding some compost to 9 or 10 container tomato plants tomorrow because the mix has packed down from watering and rain, and a few roots are beginning to show. I have big plans for tomorrow, so I hope the energy holds out.

Dawn, You are lucky to have those big tubs. I have pretty good luck with container plants and I don't normally have to water as much as you do, but big pots help. I will probably be putting some pepper plants into containers. I am going to put the peppers from the Fling in the garden, but the peppers that I planted so late are starting to look a little better so at least part of them look like they will be worth planting.

I have been using Al's 5:1:1 suggestion for potting soil. It is a mix it yourself and I found it on the container gardening section. It is great and impossible to over water. I had some plants that looked awful in mg soil that turned around in the 5:1:1.