thanks deck guru! How about the pre-treat from, I guess what is mill glaze? Will try to post before/after pictures. And to ask that which I didn't in my earlier post...California Redwood color? What kind of name is that? What... is there Sahara Redwood species? I sometimes wish these companies would just tell it like it is...light redwood, dark redwood, very dark redwood, or even jsut red!

I've only read your first post so far, madtownwriter, so my opinion will only cover that. Not everyone will have to contend with a hard pan. (Are you meaning a hard pan due to machinery having driven over it? When a rotary hoe is brought in, as many are fond of doing, it crumbles the top layer and leaves a hard pan beneath that layer. This is not good at all.) So, where there is no hard pan, I agree with the link that says not to disturb the soil in the bottom of the hole. Info is often contradictory because so much depends on what is going on in the mind of the writer/talker, their imaginations running riot. Would you be keen on getting someone in to rip the area? This is a long, single thing that makes its way from the soil, rather deep, leaving a rather choppy mess I suppose behind it, but breaking a hard pan. Maybe it would be something that you'd rather not do as any neatness would be ruined. And you would have to fork over the entire area perhaps, afterwards, before planting. I've never had it done. I think the trees would love it though, when they find themselves in a garden which was ripped, then dug by hand, and lovingly planted. (Oh and you would have to know where things were underground. You don't want pipes and wires and other frightening stuff making an appearance.)

If it is a MWBC why does he need a subpanel and ground rods? That's different than installing an actual subpanel. If the OP can get away with two 20-amp circuits, then a MWBC would be a lot easier/cheap to run. Assuming the distance isn't too long, 12-3 UF-B can be direct bury (sleeved as it leaves the ground for physical protection), 12" down as long as it's GFCI protected before it leaves the house. No need for ground rods.

I'm still trying to find a balance that is versatile enough to retain enough water so plants can be watered only every other day in our scorching hot, endless summers, but also drain very well for those four months a year in winter when we get torrential downpours multiple times a week. A couple of ways you can turn extra drainage on and off, so it works for you as needed: 1) When it rains, tip your pots at a 45* angle. compare B to A to see how much difference (it's considerable) this can make with minimal effort. Why this works: The maximum height of the perched water table any given medium supports is a constant, no matter the size or shape of the container, the max ht will always be the same for THAT medium. You see this at work in A, B, C, D. Figure E illustrates how a drainage wick reduces the volume of excess (perched) water a planting can hold. While not 100% technically correct, you can think of the wick as 'fooling' water in the pot into acting like the pot is deeper than it actually is. This causes water to move down the wick looking for the bottom of the pot. The weight of the water above the bottom of the wick pushes water off the dangling end of the wick. It's very effective unless the medium is irredeemably water-retentive. To void the effects of the wick, you can remove it, or just fold it under the pot so it no longer dangles below the bottom. is there a difference in how fast the plant absorbs [organic fertilizers)? If an organic liquid fertilizer is labeled as being, say, NPK 6-2-4, that should provide the same nutrition as a synthetic one with the same NPK on the label. But would the plant uptake be faster with the synthetic? When using organic amendments like fish/ seaweed, or ground hoof/ horn/ feather/ bone/ blood, rice hull/ alfalfa meal, etc, the nutrients will be locked up tight in the hydrocarbon chains that make up these materials, which is a form unavailable for direct uptake by the plant. When these chains pass through the gut or otherwise mineralized in the grow medium, the nutrients gradually become available in a form the plant can take up directly. At that point, at the point of uptake, the salts that originated in any of these organic materials will be exactly the same as the salts in a container of Miracle-Gro or any other brand of soluble synthetic fertilizer. When you read the NPK %s on the label of an organic material, you're being informed of the weight (by %) of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, none of which is immediately available, and in almost all hobby growing endeavors, WHEN it will be available is subject to the whims of nature. So the total amount of nutrition might be the same for any given NPK % when comparing organic to synthetic, but the rate of delivery and control is vastly different. Soluble synthetics are immediately available and give the grower complete control of the supplementation process (not withstanding the small amount of misc nutrition which might become available as soil hydrocarbon chains are cleaved). You may hear or read how synthetic fertilizers like MG and others make the soil so toxic nothing can grow in it and on and on. That's not science, it's politics. I'll leave something I wrote below. You might find it interesting. I use organic fertilizer the rest of the time (weakly weekly), not due to ideology but because I have caused problems for my plants with too high synthetic ferts before and I never want to do that to them again. I always think it's better to under-fertilize than the opposite, so long as no deficiencies are showing. All I use is a soluble synthetic (FP 9-3-6), and I fertilize weekly at 1/6X the maximum suggested production (highest) rate. As long as you are using a medium that allows you to water correctly w/o paying a watering tax in the form of root function/ health problems, you have a lot of margin for error as long as you aren't dealing with temperature extremes. Perhaps an issue for you, making the weakly weekly strategy a better choice. If anyone aside from you is reading this, I might mention that using organic forms of nutrition doesn't grant immunity to fertilizer burn or ammonium toxicity. When temps are cool, people often fertilize several times with various organic sources. Low soil biota activity limits breakdown of the fertilizer, so when warm temps come, several applications can become available all at once, making plasmolysis (fertilizer burn) and ammonium toxicity (especially if the soil/ medium is wet) a real issue that often goes undiagnosed, or more often misdiagnosed. This is what I thought you might find interesting: In my gardens and beds, I adhere pretty strictly to the idea that on an ongoing basis you should use organic products/soil amendments that build the soil structure to minimize the need for soluble (read synthetic) fertilizers and nutrient supplements. That said, there are times you NEED individual nutrients to complete the assortment of essential nutrients plants take from the soil. If you're limited by a rigid 'no chemical' ideology, you either deal with the abnormal and sub-par growth or wait, while you hope adding more organic matter eventually solves all the issues. If you are NOT limited by rigid ideology, the issue is easily solved with a soil test and the addition of the appropriate nutrient(s) via a chemical compound like potash, various nitrates, phosphates, etc. There are extremists at both ends of the organic vs. chemical approach to gardening. Some never think about the soil, believing it ok to keep adding chemicals to ‘hopefully’ produce growth. Others would never THINK of using a chemical and will chastise anyone who does. When it comes to my gardens and beds, I'm in the middle, but as noted I do lean quite heavily toward the organic side, though I stop short of telling anyone what they must do to be a good gardener. ;o) Where container culture is the topic, soluble synthetic fertilizers get the nod from me - hands down. They are easier to use; we know exactly what nutrients your plants are getting and when they are getting them; delivery of nutrients does not depend on the activity of soil organisms whose populations vary in boom/bust cycles in containers; you're using a soluble product, not an organic soil amendment that has the potential to clog valuable macro-pores; you needn’t worry about soil structure, because if you’re smart you’ll have built it into the medium before you planted in it ….. but let’s save the container soil topic for another day. I mentioned there are those at one end of the spectrum who would never lift a finger to improve their soil. Adding organic matter to their soils would be as foreign to them as adding exercise to their life’s itinerary. On the other end, are those who stand ululating and hand-flapping (credit to Dan for that one) at the very thought of anyone using Miracle-Gro. From the plant’s perspective, both extreme positions are ridiculous, and from my perspective, both extremes are unnecessarily self-limiting. The plant just wants to grow to it’s genetic potential. To do that, it needs a full compliment of the nutrients plants take from the soil, and it doesn’t care if they come from compost or Miracle-Gro. Perhaps a more logical approach to plant nutrition might be to look at soluble synthetic fertilizers in the same way we look at IPM practices. Use the most naturally harmonious method/product we can to bring plant growth or yields into the acceptable range. I realize that in most cases, we can do this by adding more OM, but not always. Often too, time is a consideration. We may have someone who wants to plant immediately, in soil that is deficient in one or more nutrients. We probably shouldn't expect someone to forgo their own freedom of choice and wait two years or more while the soil is fortified/improved only via the addition of organic matter. There is a technical difference between a fertilizer and a soil amendment, but even that point eventually becomes moot from a strictly nutritional perspective. Plants take up elements that are dissolved in the soil solution and in ionic form. What they take up are salts. The large molecules that make up hydrocarbon chains in organic fertilizers/soil amendments cannot be taken up by the plant unless the hydrocarbon chains are broken down into elemental/soluble form by soil organisms. At that point, the elements from soluble fertilizers are the same as the elements from organic sources, which is why the plant could care less. At the point in time where nutrients are assimilated, they are ALL soluble and in elemental form, regardless if they came from a dead fish, compost or a hose-end sprayer. If we could only achieve happy healthy plants in a soil teaming with life, using only organic soil amendments and fertilizers, how do we explain hydroponics? ... no medium, or an entirely inorganic one, and only soluble sources of nutrients. At the very least it suggests there is a middle ground in which everyone can seek their comfort level. I’ve been growing perfectly healthy plants in containers in a medium whose only organic fraction is 1/3 or less pine or fir bark; the rest of the ingredients are large mineral particles like Turface and crushed granite. I’ve used ONLY soluble fertilizers in these soils, with the hundreds of pictures I’ve posted here at GW serving as concrete proof that happy, healthy plants can indeed be grown using only synthetic soluble fertilizers if the soil structure is favorable …… which leads me to the reason for writing this: Colloquially, the term 'organic' formerly applied to things once living, but even some plastics contain carbon and are considered organic compounds as well. It really is misleading when we throw the word around w/o much consideration, but I admit to being guilty of it from time to time as well. Technically, urea, ureaformaldehyde, isobutylidene diurea, and crotonylidene diurea (forgive me if the spelling is slightly off) are all organic molecules, and actually do an extremely good job of feeding microbes, which reinforces the idea that synthetic fertilizers are getting framed for the microbial murder rap that should be hung on the effects of reduced OM in the soils. The microbial murder rap should be hung on the effects of reduced OM in the soils; purposely redundant so it couldn’t be missed. It's a vicious circle; mineral soils can support optimal plant growth (nutritionally speaking) only if enough young decaying matter is returned to the soil regularly and frequently. Prairies and forests are virtually self sustaining because all vegetative matter is recycled back into the soil. If we regularly mow and bale the grassland, or log off the forest, nutritional deficiencies are assured as a result of our removal of the OM that would have provided future nutrition - thus the tendency/need for us to adhere to the practice of replacing the lost nutrients with chemicals. In our gardens/beds/lawns ..., we can add compost or other OM to replace the vegetative matter we remove and use or discard. For more than 20 years, I've used compost regularly in the gardens/beds, and apply fine pine bark mulch 2-3" thick, usually every other year. I have extremely healthy soil and rarely find it necessary to use anything synthetic. You can find opinions all over the net that chemical fertilizers are laying waste to the landscape, and wiping out microbial populations faster than chocolate disappears from the candy dish in the family room. Are these opinions based on political views and a radical ideology, or warranted and based in fact? In research by Texas A&M University, intensely managed (read ‘managed using chemical fertilizers‘) sports fields with mostly a sand substrate showed no shortage of soil life. That is there were 10s of millions of bacteria, and 10s to 100s of thousands of fungi per cubic centimeter present in the heavily managed soils. Part of the study included measuring soil life in 11 inches (deep) of pure sand, with no organic amendments whatsoever, over which washed sod was placed. As the sod 'grew in', soil life populations increased almost immediately, 10-100 times . Soil life populations just sort of hang loose, waiting for something they can digest. If they don't get it, they die and feed off each other. When organic matter is introduced into the soil, they break it down, and their numbers increase. When they've consumed the organic matter, they die and consume each other, but the base population remains, ready to spring into action the moment more organic matter becomes available. What do fertilizers do? They make plants grow. Sure, extremely high concentrations of chemical fertilizer poured on the soil in volume might kill some microbes in the immediate area, but the o/a affect of chemical fertilizers is actually an increase in microbial populations through increased plant growth. You need only look to the fact that the rhizosphere (root zone) of plants is such a popular gathering place for soil biota to see increased plant mass promotes a marked increase in soil life. It's actually the continual 'taking' of OM from gardens, agricultural fields, lawns ... w/o replacing it that reduces or inhibits the communal activity of microbial populations. Even then, they're virtually never in short supply and are ever ready to bounce back ... if you just give them something to eat. None of this addresses the hot button political, ideological issues too many wish to export from their own value set, other than the fact it points out the folly in occupying the margin’s extremes. Again, I'm pretty pragmatic and results oriented, so I tend to approach this subject from a plant/soil perspective and leave the politics to the ideologues. My personal view is that in the o/a picture, a chemical fertilizer or nutrient supplement judiciously and responsibly applied to our gardens when it's found to be needed isn't the earth's end; and I prefer to use my own sense of right/wrong to set my course, rather than be told what I need to do to be a good, responsible student of husbandry. That said, avoidance of unnecessary chemicals in the gardens/beds to the greatest degree I feel is reasonable, is still my normal MO. YMMV, but options are good, and I prefer to keep them open. Al