What does everyone here use in your mix if you find it a bit too heavy? Do you just add more perlite, or whatever you personally use as aeration, until you get the consistency you like? This is after the usual 1/3 peat 1/3 humus 1/3 aeration mix per the beginner mix thread. I find my mix a bit too heavy (maybe due to my castings from my worm bin).
Yes, your aeration material of choice would be what you would use. It has no effect on anything else other than improving drainage. Sent from somewhere over there. No, not there...over THERE.
When it's too heavy, more perlite doesn't seem to do all that much. I ran into the same problem and am still working out on the old mix. Slowly since it's easier (for now), just to make a new lighter mix. It was several things that seem to be the *new standard*. I also followed the beginners recipe, 'just to see', even though it wasn't like I usually did things. First thing I did was to add Pine Bark Mulch. You need something chunky as both aeration and humus. I've used this for years, but stopped due to 'expert' advice on another site. Way too acidic. Of course, so is peat moss and I use lime for that, but didn't even consider that it would work for the pine as well, or had been for better than 30 years. So much for letting an 'expert' over ride common sense and experience. I'm still pissed at myself, simply because I should have known better. The second thing was the vermicompost. I also have my own bins and my vermiy is super dense and rich. I usually use 10-15%. 30% is entirely too much, 15% is pushing it with my stuff and now I'm keeping it closer to 10%. As rich as it is, I've noticed no negative effects. Rock dusts. I normally do 1cup/cf of Azomite and a bit over 1cup/cf of granite meal. I bumped the granite up to 4 to give me 5 total. The mix felt gritty and looked blue gray in the sun. Just made the mix more dense and worsened drainage. I've since gone back to the 1 and 1. Seed meals and other amendments. My very first mix called for 1/2cup of blood meal/cf. I've since switched to an alfalfa/soy meal blend at a healthy 2cups+/cf. That is a 4x+ increase in volume. Not going to change that, but you need to factor that in. The bone meal (for me) has stayed constant @1cup/cf., but many are using other P sources at higher rates, again something to consider. Kelp meal is another heavy amendment that has really been increased. My original recipe called for 1/2cup/cf. I've increased it to a very light 1 cup. But I have seen 2, 3, or more cups called for in recipes. I don't think it will hurt, but is not needed and is heavy. Like with alfalfa, a little goes a long way. Now, for fixing this heavy mix, I made a light mix of just peat moss, perlite, pine bark mulch and lime for buffer. A 50/50 mix of this and the heavy still seems too heavy and the next batch will be more like 70/30. We'll see, I still have over 6cf of the heavy mix to play with. HTH ... some Wet
Wet, thank you for the thoughtful answer and it certainly has helped me. The more I read and research, the more I see that using common sense and going by feel/looks will benefit me more than sticking to a strict recipe. Thanks for helping me think on it a bit more.
Try buckwheat hulls instead of perlite next time. I don't use perlite any more; just don't like it and I find that hulls just do a much nicer job of making things lighter and drain well. J
Read my sig line. I stole it from Microbeman, but it is just too good a quote and sums up my feelings exactly, especially with all the internet 'experts'. Wet
Whats wrong with vermiculite and coco coir, both a cheap and you can get anywhere. Heck evens some home depots carry chunky curd perlite.
Vermiculite is bad because it retains too much water and not enough oxygen.... making it a very poor aerator, obviously. IMO Coir is fine for growing, right on par with peat..... it's when you factor in the child and "bonded" slave labor issues that the scales tip in favor of peat, again, IMO. The reason to not use Pine Bark has nothing to do with acidity. Pine/cedar/redwood trees all contain terpene profiles that are powerful microbicides/fungicides/vermicides. They will definitely harm the soil food web in a living organic soil. Some LD posts: Chemist, eh? Kewl! This will be an easy answer - it's about the terpenes contained in pine, redwood, et al. varieties vs. the ones found in fir. Fir chips provide a healthy environment for fungi hyphae as in hiding places, specific exudes that facilitate their growth, etc. Redwood and/or cedar are the absolute worst choices given their high aromatic profile (from their terpenes) cause any number of problems in a microbe colony. That's why these bark products are used to reduce 'weeds' in a flower garden. Then again the term 'weed' is relative to the benefit that a plant provides. HTH LD and Beyond the issue with the alkali nature of wood ash (remember that Potassium in a base metallic alkali) so of course you're going to have extremely high pH numbers, you have Terpenes that are found in plants and in all woods and some can wreck havoc on your plants - cedar, pine, etc. - i.e. generally woods which have a high aroma to them are ones to avoid. ..... YMMV LD and chunkdaddyo said ^^^^word Add cedar, pine or any wood with a strong aroma to the list - i.e. terpenes and/or terpenoids. Death from the heavens and There is no such thing as a soil being 'too rich' - that doesn't mean there isn't 'hot soil' but that has absolutely nothing to do with being 'too rich' - it's from using poorly finished thermal compost, using raw manures, wood chips (the word 'turpentine' and 'terpene' should ring a bell), etc. [con't] Jerry From Wikipedia.com (I know...I know): Quote HTH LD
Im sorry i thought you are going for anaerobic conditions, thats the main composting bacterial force. Anaerobic means of course anaerobic fermentation, which is a type of cellular respiration, and if it helps... you kinda like breathing. The terminal products of anaerobic fermentation are the very nutrients your plants need to live. They include fixed nitrogen, chelated iron and sulfur and so on. Not to mention the number of products created along the way, the phosphates and so on. SO in order to keep your happy microbe ecosystem, you need anaerobic conditions. WHOA YOU MEAN THAT THERE WILL ZERO OXYGEN? No don't be stupid. The oxygen can only penetrate to a certain density. Thus oxygen restrictive forces will be needed to create these pockets, especially in container planting.
Oh, no man...... our soils MUST be kept aerobic.... I don't know where you got this info from..... plants must have oxygen in the rhizosphere (root-zone) to live. Beneficial microbes are the aerobic ones.... they do all the "composting" and making nutrients available to our plants. You should probably read some or all of the book that I am attaching..... it is a great help in understanding how a living soil food web works.
Ugh dude I'm talking about microscopic zones. On the surface of the vermiculite, do you have any idea how small a I'm talking? Micrometers. And from a quick look your "guide" has no specific original source materials. I.E science. Ill do some RESEARCH and get back to you.
Ok if you want a more professional explanation ill need awhile to type up a summary but I can highlight my points quickly and you can follow along. 1. Biofilms are the key to soil ecology. 2. They exist by attachment, they need something to attach to. 3. They produce large anaerobic zones needed for certain bacteria and archea to thrive, especially those that have the nitrogen fixing enzyme as it is inhibited by oxygen. 4. Anaerobic zones mean, as stated above, anaerobic respiration, which is vital to the nutrient and energy cycling of life. Here is a fun picture. http://elbanet.ethz.ch:8001/rid=1146728302745_1398344820_736/photosynthesis_respiration.cmap The attachments explain the diversity of biofilms and their role in soils. Look at all those fancy citations
I like your enthusiasm man, but your interpretation of the science is shaky. I don't know where you got the idea that biofilms create large anaerobic zones. Most biofilms are entirely permeable by oxygen... only anaerobic bacteria or archae produce anaerobic biofilms that block oxygen. These are an incredibly small minority of the microbes in a healthy, living soil. Your idea that there are large anaerobic zones in living soils, and that this is "where composting takes place" is a gross misconceptualization of the scientific papers you posted. In fact, the soil biofilm pdf didn't even contain the word anaerobic in the body of the paper.... not once. If you were to look at that "fun picture" you posted, it says that anaerobic respiration is a form of fermentation, of which there are two types: lactic acid fermentation and alcoholic fermentation. Lactic acid fermentation occurs in animals, so is inapplicable here. The product of alcoholic fermentation is ethyl alcohol. Think that's good for your plants? You supply your plants with anaerobic fermentation and alcohol in the rootzone and I'll keep aerobic conditions and we'll see who does better lol You are taking an extreme example of what can occur within the soil (anaerobic respiration) and extrapolating that to the entire soil food web... that's not going to work out well. You asked a question about vermiculite. I tried to help you. If my help is not welcome, if you think you have a handle on things by keeping your soil anaerobic, I'll move right along, no hard feelings.
Again, large being microscopically large. Your concept of what fermentation is really holding you back. Respiration is simply the movement of electrons, fermentation being the movement without the use of terminal oxygen. This can only occur by the absence of oxygen. The paper does not mention anaerobic conditions because it mentions anaerobic bacteria which is assumed to be living anaerobically. Nitrosomonas i guarantee will be in there, probably nitrospira. As far as the concept of only alcohol and lactic acid fermentation, you really need to get out a text book dude. High school was just full of shit. Ive been needing to type out a explanation for while of a top to down summary of respiration and its correlation of plants.
The word 'anaerobic' was not in the paper at all... not in reference to conditions or bacteria. The concept of only alcohol and lactic acid fermentation came from the "fun picture" you posted. Perhaps you should cite more quality sources, such as those high school text books you mentioned. Clearly this is going nowhere.... I was simply trying to answer your vermiculite question and provide a book (Teaming with Microbes) that is incredibly useful. Sorry to bother you, in all sincerity best of luck with your grow.
No need to be sorry GtG and also IfeltathighTX420, any discussion is always welcome in a thread I make...even if it is a bit over my head there are parts i take and learn from
I find if a soil mix is a bit dense, either cutting the rock dust applied to 2 cups rather than 4 helps as well as using smaller aeration pieces, such as rice or buckwheat hulls. I also add additional sphagnum peat moss to obtain the desired texture if too dense; peat has some aeration qualities but not much. Coco coir is okay but it tends to adsorb ions like calcium and sulfur (more than peat), making them unavailable to the plants. Lower CEC also deters me from using it in my soil, though it works well in a vermi bin.