African Violet Potting Soil Recipe
4 quarts canadian peat moss
4 quarts coarse vermiculite
4 quarts coarse perlite
1/4 cup dehydrated cow manure
3 Tablespoons dolomite lime
2 Tablespoons Superphosphate
2 cups fine hoticulture charcoal
this from a grower.
What is your favorite soil mixture formula? Helene
soil mixture
I have started using one that I came up with on my own, mostly because it is cheap:)
I big bag of Lowes peat moss (I think it was under 6.00 for 4 cubic feet)
I bag of cheapo Home Depot dried cow manure/compost (under $2.00)
Coarse perlite (I just eyeball it but I like a lot of perlite)
About a cup or two of pelleted blood meal
I use a bit tub to mix it all in.
I want to add coarse vermiculite to it but I am broke this week. So far it appears to be doing well but I have only started using it in the past 2 weeks. I was looking for something cheap because so many recipes call for such expensive stuff and I just ain't gonna do it, LOL!
Oh, I also will add dolomite when I get some bucks also!!
Does anyone have an easy source for dolomite and superphosphate. Do any of the box stores carry this stuff? I heard lowes has the dolomite lime but I didn't see it there.
Pat in Orlando
That is interesting and certainly hits right where it counts $$$.Very Helpful to me as to where to find things.
I love, love Pro-mix and found a source here in Sarasota today.
#1 it is too large for my humble growings and they are not allowed to break it up.
#2 mega $.
#3 because of size I have no storage to speak of and can't carry it.
Had very bad experiences with Miracle grow AV mix. Hence my quest for making my own.
You can always use equal parts good quality peat,vermiculite,and perlite,with a little charcoal added.Double the perlite for wicking.You can then add lime,bloodmeal,manure,superphosphate,etc.,according to what you prefer.Be sure to sterilize if using manure!!
Lynn
50/50 Peat and Perlite for babies/young plants. Which is what I use for my carnivorous plants. Might go 75/25 to reduce how often I have to water. Same for my Streps.
I love Volksman's. Easy peezy. I add things to it if I feel like it.
Volkmans stuff was always good. Where do you guys buy it??? Helene
I odered it, has been about a year.
It's still great stuff,but not available here in the Midwest,unless you pay to have it shipped.In your area you could ask a local nursery to put a bag or 2 on the their next truck.They normally don't charge anything extra for that,because they have trucks coming all the time anyway.
Lynn
I tried making my own mix a year and a half ago . . . put all the right "stuff" in it . . . my plants just didn't like it. They just sat there - didn't thrive. I went back to getting the mix from the nursery in Boerne. Plants like it much better.
If I could find a place with the ProMix (bx, px, something like that) I'd get that to try. Even if I had to get a big bale of it, I could use it for outside potted plants.
our home depot carries pro mix, do you have a home depot?
bonnie
We have a private Nursery here in Sarasota Fl. who carries it - It does only come in a Bale $60.00.It is intended for "Pros"
When I had many I used it and just loved it. Have to check "home deep" here. HD
I had always seen it at Home Depot at those times when I didn't want it . . . but it seems that when I DO want it . . . can never find it! There is a local nursery who said they could order it for me, but then they push their own stuff at me . . . ACE Hardware carried it . . . but now the last ACE I knew of in San Antonio is no longer an ACE . . . oh, well . . . will keep an eye out for it!
I have heard that you can get Ace Hardware to order it for you but I couldn't afford it. I heard it is really good though.
Pat
I got an update on my new soil mix and how it is doing (peat moss, cow manure/compost/coarse perlite and pelleted blood meal.
It works pretty well and the plants seem to be responding to it. I see good growth in just a few weeks. It does seem to get a bit hard and crunchy when it dries so I am adding coarse vermitculite to it also. I may also add garden lime to it (see my other post).
Okay, I am supposed to be cleaning my house so I guess I should stop avoiding it......
Pat
Pat--I hope you are experimenting with your soil mixture on only a few designated plants, and making one change at a time, then awaiting the results. I am the voice of experience here. Even though I knew better, I added lime to lots of my failing plants last year in desperation. They just hated it! What a mess I had to clean up! In my case, adding lime was NOT the answer!
Hey, thanks for the heads up on lime! I will be very careful, maybe only add a small pinch to a gallon of mix on the next few plants just to see. I have only repotted a small number of plants so far and so far so good. I will add a tiny amount of lime and see what happens on the next few. If it fun experimenting with making my own.
I also think I had the light on for too long and that was stunting the centers. I am already seeing an improvement by cutting the time way back. I guess I was running them over 14 hours a day. Guess I just wasn't thinking or keeping track very well.
Pat
Pat,
Be really careful with lime if the water PH in Orlando is high.Here it is 9 and the last thing plants need is lime.
Lynn
It is good to have a PH meter (soil tester) . I think the violets do well in ph of 6.5.
What happens, the peat moss eventually turns acidy and that changes the PH of your growing medium. Helene
Helene --
If you don't mind saying online -- what was the problem with the Miracle Grow? I'm just getting to more advanced considerations like soil mix, so all my AVs are in MG & perlite. They seem to be doing well, but it'd be good to know what to look out for, and it sounds like maybe it'd be worth doing a trial with some other mixes. I guess HD would be a good place to begin -- hopefully they will have ProMix.
Interesting thread -- you guys (gals) really know your stuff!
-Jan/wiggiej
So Lynn,
I guess I should have figured that the lime was to raise pH? Is that its entire purpose in the mix?
My pH in water is actually high and I treat my water before I put it on my African Violets so it sounds like lime is not a good thing for me to be adding. I did add some coarse vermiculite and I think I might be pretty close to a mix that I like.
Does anyone know what the difference would be between adding pelleted blood meal versus bone meal. I bought the blood meal because that is what they had and the AVs seem to like it and it does burn anything.
Pat
Well miracle grow adds fertilizer to their potting soils. AV soil as well. Since I am starting over, all I have are plantlets, using that soil burned the tiny centers to death.I also have problems with my containers outside. Being it is very hot, the plants don't want too much fertilizer. But it is in the soil. Also perhaps some batches have more than others...
Promix is something I used when I had like 2000.It comes in bales only. I loved that stuff but don't need so much. So now I bought an organic soil mix and I add perlite. Trying this. As my plants get more mature I'll have to figure something out. I am going to try to go with the mix I posted on top from this grower...And then use fertilizer at my disgration.
Yes lime sweetens the soil, so be careful with that.
Jan/wiggiej,
I will throw in my two cents worth (or less lol) until Helene responds to your question. MG has changed on formula in general. They are now adding more of the soft woods to the mix (pine, etc.) making it cheaper to produce. In the mean time it is attracting fungus gnats like crazy. I have opened a bag and swarms of them have come flying out of the bag not to mention the eggs. MG is a heavy mix and although you see the perlite in it, your gessies seed more of a lighter soil.
I have found an Ace Hardware store in my area (under a different name) and asked them to order some Promix-BX for me. No problem. Ordered Monday and received on Friday. If you can find it in bags, it is better but more expensive than the bales. I ordered 2 bales that were 2 cubic ft. each I think. With mixing the perlite and vermiculite with it, I still haven't used 1/2 of one bale. It has lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.
Hope this helps a little :)
Connie
I haven't had a problem using it with other plants after I add to lighten the soil mix and let those gnats out lol. We have used it on tropicals without a problem but I knew not to fertilize for awhile. I haven't and won't use it for gessies because of the bugs. I can see it burning those baby roots if you don't add to the mix to lighten it though.
Connie
I don't like what MG is doing to their mixes. I also don't like that they add fertilizer to everything they make. I prefer Pro-Mix or make my own with peat moss and perlite.
Yes, the main purpose of lime is to raise PH.It also helps prevent soils from getting too acidic from the process of peat breaking down and the use of some fertilizers.A lot of growing mixtures contain lime.It's not a bad thing,just something to use with care.
Lynn
Connie and Helene-- Thank you both for your insights- - very helpful. I THOUGHT something was different with MG -- I keep finding wood chunks in the bags that I don't recalll seeing in the past. So it's not my mis-recollection! Haven't had problems with fungus gnats, but I sure don't want them. The yellow sticky traps work wonders if you use them early, but they are so ugly I'd rather not have to deal with them at all. Maybe I'm just high maintenence, but yellow pieces of paper covered in dead flies are just not my idea of "decorative touches" for the breakfast nook (we don't discuss piles of books and paper). And no matter what anyone else says, I'm sure fungus gnats carry disease. I've worried a bit about the fertilizer but haven't had too many problems with mature plants. I don't tend to get plugs, but come to think of it, the few I've gotten haven't fared well -- this really bummed me out because they were varieties I wanted for some time and couldn't find otherwise. I never figured out what the problem was, and of course it's hard to tell when they're so delicate, but now that I think of it, fertilizer burn is a likely culprit.
Sounds like I need to check around here for the ProMix or similar. There are a lot of gardening nuts in town, so I'd bet one nursery or another has it. And if not, HD here is pretty cooperative about order requests.
Jan
never thought of co-op but shipping is so $$$. the stuff is $60.00 a bale alleady.
I thought about a coop as well, but unfortunately I lost my job this week, so I have no hope of being able to participate. It might be worth it if enough are interested--many cannot accommodate a bale.
I got mine cheaper than that here. If you all want some and can figure up a way to do it, I would not mind sending some out in gal. bags or something like that. I am not sure how to figure up what each bag costs me. But the problem there would be the cost of shipping added on to it. It would take me forever to bag up a bale to figure it out LOL!!
Connie
Hmmmm.....that DOES sound like a challenge! Of course there is flat rate shipping for packages
I guess what I need to do is fill a gal. bag, weigh it and multiply to see how many bags to a bale. Then take what I paid and divide by how many bags I could fill. Would that work? I charge what it cost me to buy but again, you would have to add in the shipping and figure out the cheapest way to ship if anyone was interested. It would still have to come out cheaper than getting a bale online and cheaper than 60.00 a bale. Hmmmm is right, Phoebes LOL
Connie
Here's a link for pro-mix distributors. http://www.premierhort.com/eProMix/index.htm Users on another forum state Pro-mix BX is best--and cheaper as well, just have to add more perlite than with Pro-mix HP. Some find it at their Home Depot--but those seem to be rare.
Ummm...HUH???? LOL--Too late in the day to internalize all that! My higher math brain cells already went to bed! :-P
Just confusin' ain't it? LOL
^_^
Hi Alll--
I'm not sure if this will help anyone, but I did find small quantities of pro-mix bx available through an amazon seller.
http://www.amazon.com/Gallons-Quarts-Potting-Soiless-Growing/dp/B003OK249S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=garden&qid=1280853984&sr=1-1
It''s $5.29 for 3 gallons (12 qts), with shipping of 11.47 (!). Still kind of lousy to have to pay that much for shipping, but the weight seems to be the issue -- everywhere i find it it's the same thing.
Hope this helps!
Jan
wow, good to know.
bonnie
Is BX the one most of you use?
From another forum--Advice from a long time grower...and her plants are gorgeous!
"I use Premier Pro Mix BX. The Premier Pro Mix "HP" stands for High Porosity which means it has lots more perlite in it than the Premier Pro Mix BX mix. I found the HP to be way more expensive so I buy the BX and add the amount of additional perlite and vermiculite that I want in my mix. You can't go wrong with either of these. It's a great quality product."