Ok, not really popular, but at CindyP's urging.  :)
First and foremost, I want to say up front that I AM NOT AN EXPERT!!  :)  This is only my second year gardening, period.  I gardened in containers last year, and greatly expanded my containers for this year.  Almost all of my container gardening information comes from two sources:  The Container Gardening Forum on GardenWeb (and more specifically, Al's posts on "Container Soils: Water Movement & Retention" and Raybo's posts on "Best Mix for Earthtainers"), and the book "The Bountiful Container" by McGee & Stuckey.  I also get advice on local, zone-related information from the GardenWeb Forum Rocky Mountain Gardening. 

A lot of folks don't know that container gardening is vastly different than in-ground gardening, and few of the same "rules of thumb" apply.  I will be trying to be very specific in what I did, because even small changes in container gardening can account for widely varied results.  Most importantly, for the vast majority of container gardeners, using regular garden dirt in your containers WILL NOT WORK!  I highly highly recommend reading Al's post referenced above for a detailed, scientific explanation of why.  :)

I am gardening in containers because while I have a lot of room, my husband and I don't plan on staying at this house much more than a year, so I don't want to invest all the time and effort into preparing a long-term garden.  Last year's garden was a true trial run, and this year is more of the same.  I say in advance that I am preparing this year's garden with the understanding that my methods likely mean that it is an annual garden only, and that my perennials probably won't last the winter.

So, with that in mind, here's what happened last year (and thus, what I know worked-this year's garden is more experimental).  I did my gardening in 4, 5-gallon Home Depot buckets.  I drilled 5-6 1/4" holes about 2" up from the bottom of the bucket.  I put one large rock into the bottom for weight, then filled the buckets with organic Potting Mix (NOT Soil.  Very important).  I put regular sized tomato cages in all 4 buckets.  The buckets were planted as follows (all are from seed unless noted):  #1-Eva Purple Ball tomato, Superbo basil, Marigold; #2-Washington Red Cherry tomato, basil & marigold; #3-Unknown variety bell pepper from transplant, unknown jalapeno variety from transplant, marigold; #4-Northern Pickling cucumber, marigold.  I put homemade Complete Organic Fertilizer (from Steve Solomon's book "Gardening When it Counts") in each bucket, and fertilized weekly with a half-strength solution of Age Old Organic brand "Age Old Grow 12-6-6" liquid fertilizer.

I got average crops from everything last year.  My cucumber caught powdery mildew, and my peppers didn't do well because it took me half the summer to figure out the tree in my backyard shaded half of my containers so they only got about 1hr of sun a day.  Once I moved them, things took off.  At the end of the season, I dumped out my buckets in order to see what had gone on underneath the soil.  Even though all my plants seemed to do well, when I looked at the roots, they completely filled the entire bucket.  If they weren't completely root-bound, they were close.  I attributed this to putting too many (at least 3) plants in each bucket.

So, on to this year!  Vast expansions!  I doubled the size of my available gardening space.  This year, I will be planting in 5 of those blue plastic kiddie wading pools (45"Dia x 8" deep), 3 whiskey barrel planters, and 10 Globalbucket SWC's (self-watering containers: for pics & description, see http://www.globalbuckets.org ).  I will be planting perennial herbs (Greek Oregano, Arp Rosemary, Pineapple & tricolor sage, French Tarragon, Bushy & Lemon Thyme, & Lemon Verbena, all from starts from my local garden center) in one pool, annual herbs (Genovese, Red Rubin, & Siam Queen basil, German chamomile, Calypso cilantro, Sweet Marjoram, and cumin all from seed) in the second pool, strawberries in the third; scallions & Encore Lettuce Mix in the fourth; and Parris Island Romaine and Green Bibb Deertongue lettuce in the fifth.  Whiskey Barrel #1 will contain Apple, Chocolate, Grapefruit, Spear, and Peppermints.  Whiskey barrel #2, Nectar F1 carrots & regular chives.  #3 Early Mokum F1 carrots & garlic chives.  The Globalbuckets will be: 2 of LittleLeaf pickling cucumbers, 1 of Fernleaf dill, 1 of Ace bell pepper, 1 of Big Jim Hatch chilies, 1 of jalapenos, 1 of Big Beef Tomato, 1 of Eva Purple Ball tomato, 1 of Washington Red Cherry tomato, and 1 of some kind of Roma-ish paste tomato.  Whew!

I am making the medium for all my containers this year, with two recipes.  For the pools & barrels, I'm using Al's 5:1:1 mix (5 parts pine bark fines to 1 part sphagnum peat to 1 part perlite), as recommended on the GW forums.  For the buckets, I'll be using a 3:2:1 mix of non-moisture control potting mix:Pine Bark Fines: Perlite as recommended by Raybo on GW.  For anyone who cares, in order to make all the soil for my pools & barrels, I used 12x 2 cuft bags of pine bark fines, 1x 3 cuft bag of sphagnum, and 1x 3 cuft bag of Perlite.  It was quite the project!  I drilled a number of 1/4" holes in the bottoms of all the buckets and pools, and a 1/2" hole in the center of each, through which I ran an 8" length of 1/4" cotton rope to function as a wick.

I've already Direct Sowed my annual herbs, but I protected each one with a small cloche made out of a Vitamin Water bottle with the bottom cut off and a 1/2" hole drilled in the lid.  This is a modification of winter-sowing.  I don't have anywhere in my house that I can start seedlings, so this is the next best thing.  It worked pretty well last year, so hopefully it will again this year.  I've also planted out all the lettuce/scallions, since they're more cool-weather anyway.  The first couple of weeks of April I plan to get my buckets put together & get my perennial herbs going, as well as the carrots.  Now, for those of you who are wondering, our late frost date is May 3rd, so I'm pushing it to put my plants out a couple weeks sooner than that.  It's a risk I am willing to take, but it may bite me in the butt!  Part of the reason I can do that is because the soil is in containers, it warms up much faster than ground soil does.  Conversely, it is more susceptible to over-heating, and freezing.  It's all a balancing act.

So, there's my novel!  I'll try to keep updates going throughout the summer so y'all can see how my experiments turn out.  Questions are welcome, as are suggestions.  :)

Mrs. Fuzz,  Where in Colorado are you?  Our last frost date in the Springs is a little later in May.  Your containers sound fantastic.  Where do you get the pine bark fines?  Have never heard of it but your container mix sounds like it is something we could use.  Good luck with your garden this year.  Read this week that all over the country there was a fungus which wreaked havoc on tomatoe crops because of wet weather.  The article mentione spraying tomatoes with a fungicide for at least seven days ( Article was in This Old House – April 2010)

Mamawolf in Colorado

Mrs. Fuzz.  We are in Colorado Springs and just got rid of some snow and are threatened with more tomorrow and Wednesday.  Welcome to Springtime in Colorado.  One of the veggies not to plant two years in a row in the same place is peppers and not grow them near tomatoes or plant were tomatoes were the previous year.  Something about the relationship between peppers and tomatoes.  Hope we get good Spring type weather soon here in Colorado and all over.  Need some different weather.  No crocuses or daffodils areound town yet. .

The pictures are great, nice size when you click on them.   You are so organized, we are still cleaning up from last year,  we have heavy clay soil and you can't get in the garden when it is wet.  I just wanted to mention that there is a product called Stop Rot that is sold at Lowes and places like that,  it boosts the calcium level (You spray it directly on the plants) and if you have a wet season it can save your tomato crop.  It stops that blossom end rot that causes the tomatoes to rot on the bottom  just about the time they are starting to ripen. I hope everyone has a great garden this year.

We save eggshells throughout the year (rinse them out) and till them into the area where we will plant tomatoes to give them the extra calcium and mix 1 tablespoon epsom salts into the soil when planting.  They also like the potassium from banana peels which I also put around the roses.   Will try the Global Buckets and see what happens.  Happy Gardening.  Due for more snow today and tomorrow.  Spring where are you?

Epsom salts is safe to use on pretty much everything, as long as you dilute it properly.  I've seen everything from 1/2 t. per gallon at every watering to 2 T per gallon 4 times a year.  I would start with the lowest dose, and then go up from there if you think you need to.

I've been out of town for a few days, and when I got back, my garden had a big surprise for me!  All my lettuce is sprouting (although the Parris Island isn't up much, don't know if it's still too cold, or if its just not going to germinate for me), plus my scallions are peeking through.  Cilantro has also started to show up.

I'm on vacation the next two weeks, so I'm going to put my soil mixture into the Globalbuckets & plant them, as well as get the last of my herb transplants put in.  Hopefully the weather doesn't kill me.  I'm about a month early from our late frost date (May 3).  :D 

A friend of ours planted their tomatoes in one of those upside down hanging things and they did not like it at all and they didn't have a great crop either.