I have some half-grown watermelon vines

[alphafemale]

Container grown until now.

We are in a new subdivision type area with ravaged soil.

Would it be ok to load up a kiddie pool with good soil and make that the "hill"?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Maybe.

You'd need to create drainage holes because it's hard to regulate the water uptake and even something as water-intensive as a melon can get root rot from sitting in water. I've never tried melons in containers but I have grown a lot of veggies in containers, including water-intensive cukes. My container gardening handbook says that dwarf watermelons will do well. I'm not sure how the standard size varieties would do -- either they would produce fewer melons or smaller ones is my guess.

As you are probably aware, the method for fertilizing plants in containers is a bit different. Either use a slow-release fertilizer or mix a very weak solution in each time you water.

[alphafemale]

2. Yeah. I'm going to put holes in the container.

I'm going to transplant later.

Went and got a small wading pool earlier.

I'm putting a good mix in. I probably won't need to do any feeding for quite a while then.

I'd never done container gardening before.

But everything is doing well.

And yeah. The ground here is basically a coarse sand with some clay properties.

Funny thing is I grew up in the Ohio Valley which has such rich, black soil from the gift of the glaciers that you could think a seed and it would grow.

I'm thinking of maybe a raised garden next year.

What is safe to use though?

Is treated lumber or railroad ties Ok?

[Gormy Cuss]

3. No treated lumber for edibles

Railroad ties aren't recommended either, although both are good for landscaping beds.
Raised beds are best made from cedar or redwood (common grade, nothing fancy) or the new plastic lumber. They don't need to be very high -- most of mine are 12-16" high and that's good enough for tomatoes and other deep-rooting veggies. You can get away with beds that are only 6-8" high for lettuce, radishes, etc.
This catalog has great ideas for raised beds although they tend to be a little pricier than some other places: http://gardeners.com

We moved here from Massachusetts (mostly alluvial, loamy soil) and it was quite a re-education to learn how to garden in the hot dry summers of interior California valleys. Our soil is such pure clay that a friend of our made a pot of it and threw it in her kiln --- it fired to a near perfect pot. Thus for gardening we amend like crazy before landscape plantings and use raised beds to keep the soil friable for veggies.

Good luck with the watermelon.