Lol I don't think I'm gonna use perlite. To be honest I dont think I'll be using vermiculite either. I'm running just rice hulls right now and there really working out. And its really cheap. Soil is staying real fluffy and it retains water nice. Watering the plants I'm noticing the hay used to cover the pots to keep the soil cool retains allot of water too. So I'm also thinking of using raw alfalfa, broken up, mixed in The soil also. Also the added N that will slowly break down in the soil. I think will be beneficial.
Great idea. Never worked with rice hulls myself. Sent from my SGH-I337M using Grasscity Forum mobile app
It's awsome. Has minute N and micro in it also. And 10 bucks for 50 lbs. Not sure how many CU ft but I'd guess around 4-5
I made a thread about mixing a big batch a couple months ago. I made three cubic yards, that's a lot of work! One yard is about up to the rails in the bed of an F150. Cost for me was : 4 bales promix HP $120 One yard of compost $35 One yard of worm castings + peat mix $100 50 lbs kelp 20 lbs tomato tone 50 lbs chicken manure 35 lbs bone meal 50 lbs alfalfa pellets 50 lbs gypsum 50 lbs dolomite lime That's gotta be about $550 total I think. The pile was steaming pretty good for a while but after about a month and a bit I used it with no problems. Not sure where I could have upped the measurement of amendments because it was measured by weight and not volume. I figure there was about 1.5 cups of each amendment per cubic ft. You got a good deal on that stuff, a lot less labor too!
PBH brand compressed hulls? I think it stretches to around 7 c.f., just got done with a bag myself. Consider it a carbon and silica source, along with the aeration factor, in a soil. Very little nutrition otherwise but my personal favorite aeration amendment. Easy to tell when its time to harvest the worm bin since I mix the hulls into compost and use that as my "bedding".
I've used no perlite and I'm seeing no difference between mine and otherrs except the money I've saved lol.