gardening in the bag

For the last 5 or 6 years I have done a small garden in the only corner of my yard that gets AM sun and is close to a water barrel.  I have a sunnier spot, but it gets blasted with late afternoon sun (too intense for most of the veggies I like to grow) and too far to lug water from the barrel.  I saw a book about gardening right in the bag of soil, helpful if you have poor soil, and too lazy to build raised beds properly.  Of course, only certain plants are happy in these shallow conditions, but sugar/snow peas and spinach do great and you can really get them ready early.  Most herbs do well, I've grown cilantro, dill, basil, oregano like this, and zinnias too.  I put my tomatoes in large pots against the fence, and cukes against the bedspring coils.  I have a swamp sunflower (native to NC) in the wet corner (in the ground) and a pineapple sage in the other.  Finally with Spring on the horizon, and a sunshiney, warmish day, I realized that today would be planting day for the peas (otherwise if it goes too late, they get burnt up here in mid-NC), and spinach.  I uncovered last years' bags from the pile of leaves and garden debris, churned up the soil and planted.  My makeshift trellis was still up from last year, so besides sticking the seeds in, all I had to do was cover with a thin plastic sheet.  This works great to insulate and keep the creatures and birds from digging up the seeds before they have a chance to grow.  I skipped the cover last year, and had dramatically fewer plants (and more chipmunks).  Looking foward to a yummy late April harvest....