Ljbrandt, Excellent experiment, and right on time! I'm about to start my fall/winter garden here in Houston, and need some advice. Been trying to catch up to Al, but, seems he's outta pocket. I used a modification of his 5:1:1 container mix for the first time last season, growing the best crop of healthy tomatoes and plants ever. On Al's recommendation, I used a 3:1:1 mix of PBFs:peat:perlite in 5-gallon, self-watering eBuckets. I used MG Potting mix as my peat component, and I mixed in 1 cup of powdered Dolomite lime + 1 cup of 10-10-10 per eBucket. Very healthy crop! Only concern I had was at the end of the season when I ripped the plants, I noticed the mix at the bottom 1/4 of the eBucket seemed to be holding a bit more water than throughout the top 3rd. Also, I stayed confused on the watering schedule, because I could never tell if I needed to water or not. I might try your dowel this go-round, and try to adapt that as a measuring system. Now, I'm prepping my eBuckets for my fall/winter garden. I'll be growing cabbages, cauliflowers, Brussels Sprouts, and broccoli in the 5-gallon eBuckets. These are high feeders (they like organic mediums), and they are water hogs! I'd like a recommendation, please, on how to reuse the 3:1:1 mix from last season, and in what proportion to fresh MG potting mix, fresh PBFs, and fresh perlite? After reading your experiment, I'm inclined to go forward to a 5:1:1 mix in at least some of the eBuckets (I'll have about 48) just to see what would happen. Also, I need a recommendation on incorporating Black Kow Composted manure into the mix, as the plants are heavy feeders. I've grown them quite successfully in eBuckets before, in a mix of 50/50 MG Potting mix/Black Kow Composted manure. I'm still trying to get a feel for Al's container mixes, and how the plants respond (last season was my first time). I loved the lightening fast drainage, and felt there was definite oxygenation going on in the mix, because the seedlings took off like a rocket when they were planted, and stayed so healthy through our Texas heat. They grew faster than I ever saw before. Please note that not all my containers were true eBuckets. I made 1/2 of them free draining with holes drilled in the bottoms and 1/4" up the sides. These were top-watered with MG Water Soluble Plant Food for Veggies. The remaining were enclosed with the built-in reservoirs. Early on, I experienced an anaerobic odor emitting from some of the self-enclosed eBuckets, and discovered the overturned colander soil platform had collapsed in them and the mix was sitting in the water. Once I rebuilt them, there was no further smells. One other observation was that the eBuckets didn't seem to wick the water high enough, which is why I started top watering them, before the season ended. I know I've offered a mouthful here. Hope to hear some feed back as soon as you can get it posted. Almost forgot. I've started sifting dead tomato root hairs from the old 3:1:1 container mix, and will be ready to re-purpose it for the cole crops by the end of this week, so a speedy reply would be appreciated. Thank you so much, Linda

Bambusa oldhamii or B. beecheyana might fit, but has no lower leaves, but you could plant smaller bamboos in between or next to the larger, taller plants. Some of the Guaduas or Dendrocalamus' would also work, although their min temps for leaf damage is around 23 to 25F. Kt

Yes Puglvr, I understand anyone who shy's away from a Kent mango tree,..I expect mine to top out around 40 + feet when it is fully grown,..maybe 20 yrs from now. But speaking of huge mango trees, the Valencia Pride will be even TALLER than the Kent. A very fast grower, one of the reasons it does so well in places with fairly cold winters ( like here ). Grows so fast it adds a layer of outer bark faster than most trees, helping it survive those few 33 - 36 deg nights, just needs the initial 3 or so winters to be moderate. Don't even want to talk about the very rare 30 deg ones !!! lol But thats why I have my C 9 Christmas tree lights strung thru all the trees till March 1st. An ounce of prevention....

it's very difficult to eliminate other decomposer critters from a worm bin - the minimum moisture level required by the worms is more than enough to satisfy mites and gnats and others, you'd have to totally dry the material to make it unattractive to them - I'd suggest trying a couple sheets of damp newspaper to fully cover the top of the bedding, which won't provide them any food but still let air thru also note that the cyclic appearance of the bugs has to do with their life cycle, they're laying eggs, dying off, hatching out, laying eggs ..... Bill