Best & Worst Potting Soils

Wal-Mart has a kind in a white bag that is awful, I dont even think it has a brand name and it's usually kept outside. However they do have some in a yellow bag (Expert Gardener) that is pretty good and its affordable.

We have one here in Montana called "Glacier Gold". It is excellent! They are a local manufacturer who has to stand up for their product. Yes you can drive in and talk to the owner. I suggest you find something in your area that someone has "their" name on.

Hey Soferdig
Did you notice Chicory has a compost tumbler? i thought there was someone else out their with one that had problems with it.
Hey CHicory , i have one one of those tumber composter too, i didn't have much luck with it, to mucky. But i will try again,but don't tell Soferdig, he wants one BAAAAD. LOL
Has anyone else had a tumbler composter.y
I realy have a hard time with the ratios, I m not the smartest bear in the woods, but i wish i could get this darn tumbler to work.
sue

Very interesting thread here.

I just wanted to pipe in and let you know that I bought some coir last Fall and just potted up lots of seeds with it. My seeds are germinating so well in this and it doesn't dry out as fast as seed starting mix. I think I will use the coir with perlite when I transplant the seedlings into my 2" pots. I'll keep you all informed as they grow.

Donna

I have always had good results with Fafard #3: I just found out that it contains:
40% processed pine bark
Canadian sphagnum peat (I never knew this!)
perlite
vermiculite

Taynors: I have the Tumbleweed Composter. You just can't put a lot of wets in there; but they do warn you. I think they tell you 10% green TOPS. It's NOT the composter to put outside the kitchen door! Right now mine contains a real mess: a tangle of not really decomposed sunflower stalks and pillow feathers glued together by a slimy black goop. Every time I turn it, the flaccid stalks wrap themselves around the axis inside. I bought it because I have back problems and I just can't turn a pile any more. But I will say I usually do eventually get usable organic matter out of it. It's just not picture perfect, you know? It's fun to turn, though.

I would say the compost tumbler is for someone who has a lot of browns which are not too thick or which they can chop up first. Then, you'd really be cooking.

Three cheers for Coir!

I can't find any source for Turface in my area. I sure hope someone knows of a source within 150 miles of here.

DonnaS

I just had a conversation on another forum in which one of the threadsters said, and I was happy to learn, that Epsom packages a similar product. They call it "Soil Perfector". Their description is one that could easily be substituted as a description of Turf ace. It comes in 27 lb bags, a handy size for small projects.

Read a little about it here: http://www.espoma.com/content.aspx?type=sp

Al

Scott, the oyster shells (that's all they carry around here) are just not the same as granite grit; not nearly sharp enough. Whenever we travel inland by car I bring back real grit. The shells do provide lots of calcium which can be a bonus depending on what you are growing.

I have successfully used ProMix for over 30 years, stretching it with my own mix at times. The difficult trick to keeping the soil from getting hard is to always keep it moist. If the soil is like a brick you can imagine what the tender plant roots feel like. (If it does dry out warm water re-hydrates it faster than cool water.)
Once I installed drip irrigation for my patio containers my plants that had looked pretty good before started looking fantastic; it was the optimal soil moisture levels, I am sure.

DonnaS/rutholive: Two reasonably convenient sources of Turface: 1) Schultz sells it as their "Clay Soil Conditioner". Schultz products should be able to be found anywhere you would find MiracleGro/Scotts products. (i.e., nurseries and big-box stores) 2) yardgeek.com sells Turface for $10/bag.

I use to use the cheap stuff. Now I only use professional potting mix which I buy thru a local garden center. It is the same thing that is used by the botanical gardens where we use to volunteer weekly.

Something to consider: What is "professional potting mix", except for a name? I would relate it to being something akin to "The world's best pancakes".

Al

Remember, professionals and botanical gardens cannot afford to use a less than effective mix. There is a reason they are not using the mixes available at the big box stores.

Most "professinals" don't use the so called pro mixes right out of the bag.
They ammend them with their own mixtures and additives to suit their needs.

So called professional mixes are marketing gimmicks.

Paul

When I went to the nursery years ago to buy potting soil, I looked and looked at all the bags of this and that, miracle-gro and whatever, but I told them I wanted something without added fertilizer. So they said I could buy a big bag of what they use, which they do not amend with anything for starting plants. That's when I started using Fafard #3 (formula posted above), with excellent results. I always saturate it with hot water and let it sit for 24 hours before using. I start my seeds in soil blocks.

This year I added a water-retention product and I found it made making soil blocks a little more difficult, the soil did not cohere as well, but I didn't have to water as often. So I think I will cut down on the water-retaining crystals, but not eliminate them in my starting mix. For potting on I use the same #3 but I add a granular organic fertilizer and (this year) the water-retention product. So far, so good.

Paul caught my meaning perfectly.

Al

Talpa,

Here is an interesting article about ceramic soil additives...I assume that it applies to Turface also:

April 16, 2005 11:01 am - Ceramics and putting greens

If you are doing any top dressing or work on your greens with ceramics (Profile, Ecolite, Etc,) then what I have to say may want to to sit up and take notice. It appears that these ceramics are either made up of potassium or hold on to potassium very tightly and they are fooling the soils tests.
It appears from those superintendents that are using these ceramics, that the soils tests comes back showing very good levels of potassium in the rootmix. In fact some cases are showing that no potassium needs to be applied at all from the normal maintenance program, and yet, during the course of the growing season the plants show a potassium deficiency as well as on the standard tissues test.

The concern came about from consultants who where seeing this in the field and were questioning what was going on. Mark Flock who is the lab director at Brookside labs took some of this material and began to look at the effects of it. What he saw was that then these ceramics were subjected to a normal soils tests with the Mellic III extraction, the soils report showed very good levels of potassium. When the same samples where placed in a paste test, the test results showed very little potassium available in the soil solution. The work Mark Flock did appeared to show that the Mellic III extraction was strong enough to separate the potassium from the ceramics and show up on a soils report, but the water used in a paste test was not strong enough to separate the potassium from the ceramics. Apparently, the acid given off by the root hair is not strong enough either to separate the potassium from the ceramics.

If you are using or have been using ceramics on your greens and are seeing some of these same type of results, I would encourage you to supplement you normal soils testing program with some paste tests. The paste test will show you what is available in your soil solution for you plants and will help you make better decisions for your turf.

--Craig Paskvan, Soils Consultant

(I found this article here: http://www.paskvanconsulting.com/Blog/index.htm)

Missgarney, I am not sure where Cullowhee is but if you are within driving distance, the Fafard plant is in Anderson, SC and you can buy in bulk there. The best prices are on their "seconds"; mixes that were prepared for large growers that were a bit off in the composition. These mixes are perfectly fine for those of use who do not need precise proportions on the ingredients such as a large scale grower would.

ardesia, thanks for that info. I don't know where Anderson is; would it be on the way to Charleston? Cullowhee is in western NC; we're about 60 miles west of Asheville.

Oh now I remember where you are; my son lived in Bryson City for a while. Anderson is in the western part of SC, near Clemson.