Here are some of the steps along the way to the Container Farm. At the end of May, after reading the "All New Square Foot Gardening" book, we put in two beds. This was a wet spring for us, with strong storms early on that knocked out power and left the yard, indeed the entire neighborhood littered with fallen branches ranging in size from twigs to logs. In the photo (July, I think) you'll see the only evidence that the cucumbers and squash were ever healthy. Soon after this, they were ravaged by powdery mildew, and despite my best efforts, never recovered. Everything else did fairly fairly well, except the garlic and onions. Then two (just two) hornworms cleaned out our peppers. They (the peppers) came back, but too late to really do much.
Then, we discovered containers...