Kerry Michaels, who blogs about container gardening at About.com, is one of my go-to people on the subject of container gardens.

And while I am totally anal and clean my containers every spring, Kerry considers herself "a total sloth" on the matter. "I rinse them off with a hose in the fall and call it a day," she said.

She can get away with it. She lives in Maine, where the cold is going to kill anything that tries to winter-over in her pots.

There I am, with a scrub brush and my spray cleaner with bleach, making a total mess on the deck. By the end of it, my pots are so clean you could bake a shepherd's pie in one of them.

I can clean my pots this way because I've dumped the soil out of them.

Don't make the (cheap, cheap) mistake of trying to get two seasons out of your potting soil. Not only will it be seriously nutrient deficient, it might be full of insects or disease or both. Just start over.

Kerry gave me the go-ahead to add the old potting soil to my compost pile or to spread it around my beds - unless I have used water-retention crystals.

"I'm a big opponent of those things," she said. "They are made of polyacrylamide, a potential carcinogen." And, she added, Fine Gardening magazine wrote that they didn't work.

More advice from Kerry?

"I'm a big fan of putting a big volume of potting soil in your containers. Lots of people recommend filling the bottom of the pots with everything from packing peanuts to old milk jugs, but it's important to know that the more soil you have in your pot, the better it is at retaining moisture." (And temperature, too, I suspect.)

Having said that, Kerry added that there are some products out there that she likes because, like these other fillers, they have the advantage of helping with air circulation around roots. She recommended Better Than Rocks, and is anxious to try Packing Pearls.

When it comes to soil, Kerry is organic, and recomments Coast of Maine potting soils. Or Organic Mechanics.

Don't forget to mix a slow-release fertilizer into the potting soil. "I think it's the step that most people skip and it's perhaps the most important thing for happy plants." For this, she recommends Bradfield Organics products.

And finally, over the growing season, she uses a liquid fertilizer that is a fish emulsion and seaweed combination. "I dilute it and use it once every other week."

(FYI. Kerry has no financial arrangement with any of these companies.)

So, give your gardens another week to dry out and get the containers ready. You will still be outside!