Specialty Gardening: Container Soils: Water Movement and Retention II, 0 by Campfiredan

Campfiredan wrote:
Thanks Al,

I just mixed some container media according to your big batch recipe. The texture, pore space, and "mixability" is better than any by-the-book formula I've tried, including the peat lite ones. And it is a rather light-weight mix too! Thanks for the info. If there were any change I'd make it would be to try to find something to replace the peat (only because it is the most expensive ingredient in my area - pine bark here is relatively cheap). But I can't figure out anything less expensive that has near the same characteristics. Only thing I can think of locally available is very coarse cypress sawdust or possibly pine needles shredded to fiber or maybe shredding a fraction of the pine bark fines even more fine but I doubt they would really replace the peat. Spaghnum peat just seems to be magic stuff. I probably should take a nice camping vacation up to Canada and bring back a van-full of the big bales.

The 16-4-8 is a granular chemical fertilizer (soluble since it is chemical but not one of the ones meant to be diluted with water like Miracle Grow). I use it on the plants in the soil garden. The farm store recommended it for my sandy subtropical soil that holds on to absolutely nothing. It is very good for growing greens - and pretty much everything else. I also use it to hasten decomposition of wood chips to turn them into compost since it has lots of N, then I feed the super compost to the garden. That is one that I have around all the time so I thought it might be a good supplement for top dressing containers using your mix. I already use it for containers using a pine bark/compost-based mix (no CRF) and it works well but it is hard to tell how much of the micronutrients come from the compost vs. the fertilizer. Anyhow, the compost portion of the mix decomposes so fast I have to keep making new "soil" so replacing it with a more stable mix is attractive. For the containers with your recipe I probably will stick with the CRF for now since I am not always around to do a regular fertilization (and I have a *lot* of container plants). But the 16-4-8 might still make a good top dressing when the rain would do the work rinsing it in.

I'm still looking for a good long-lasting 100 % "organic" media and fertilizer mix made from local ingredients for the organic group I work with. Can't find anything that really works to my satisfaction - I don't think you can really stuff a whole year's worth of cheap, local, organic fertilizer into a gallon pot without it burning the plants at first and starving the plants later on. Organic mixes are okay for one season vegetable crops but nursery containers really don't seem to be feasible unless you top dress frequently with expensive materials like blood meal and such. No one seems to believe me on that so I keep on trying - persistence may not always lead me to success but I always learn something or other from it - and the journey is ofter fun. For my stuff at home I think I'm going to use your mix with the CRF from now on (especially if I can find a cheap peat replacement!).

Dan

PS - a picture of one of my container gardens is attached for fun.