desert,
While the Clearex soil drench isn't absolutely necessary, I think it to be prudent to apply once mid-Season, as a preventative.
I've used it on the outdoor EarthTainers when I saw buildup of salts around the overflow hole.
mysidx,
Rather than try to stake the cages from the ground up - - I let "gravity" do the work by suspending the inverted cages from the upper section of the rack. A couple of zip-ties to join the upper and lower cages together and I'm done....
Raybo
