Have been vegetable gardening for 45+ years and composting for 10. Do not use chemical fertilizers at all. After getting our home protection "system" (a german shepard, now weighting in at 107 pounds, it became painfully clear that if we were going to have our garden.....we were going to have to keep him out. We HAD to come up with a people coop......extending it when we added our greenhouse, in January. Now we have went from 2 raised bed to 8....and still expanding. Happy times......