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tutorial All about soil - A great resource I thought I would share

DP, your custom mix is very much like mine. I'm using 8 parts EB Stone Edna's Best and 1 part each perlite and worm castings.  This year I added roughly a heaping tablespoon per 3g's mix of Leonardite and biochar and the peppers are loving it across the board.  I've done this without the Leonardite and biochar before with great results; just thought I'd experiment with the extra additions this time.
 
I picked up a couple more bags of the potting soil today and it smells different, stronger than usual.  I'm reminded that when demand is high, compost companies often run low on properly aged materials and ship the "greener" stuff.  Like you say, maybe that's what you - and others - are experiencing in what would otherwise be a solid mix.  I'm hoping that's not the case with the batch I just bought.
 
I've still been unable to find a good, cheap source of bark for a 5-1-1 mix, though I've noticed that the Kelloggs brand products used primarily aged bark fines instead of peat or coco coir.
 
Wondering if maybe combining some of their mulch/topsoil with some coco coir could make a better mix then what I've been using.
 
Takanotsume said:
I recently tried doing a simplistic 33% compost/33%coco coir/33% perlite mix for a couple of plants (With worm castings being the only fertilizer)...but they don't seem to like the stuff at all as there's been little to no growth since I transplanted them almost a month ago. The soil drains really well and I've been watering sparingly only when the plants droop.
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Hawaii is the wettest state in the US.  As has been iterated here a million times or more, compost heavy mixes are NOT for wet climates.  NOT NOT NOT.  Between compost and coco coir, you can't add enough perlite to get proper drainage.
 
solid7 said:
 
Hawaii is the wettest state in the US.  As has been iterated here a million times or more, compost heavy mixes are NOT for wet climates.  NOT NOT NOT.  Between compost and coco coir, you can't add enough perlite to get proper drainage.
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I saw that here in Massachusetts last spring. I usually get a load of compost from a commercial provider, mix it with amendments and spread it evenly to prep my raised beds, but last spring was so wet and the compost was so waterlogged that they couldn't sell me any.

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solid7 said:
 
Hawaii is the wettest state in the US.  As has been iterated here a million times or more, compost heavy mixes are NOT for wet climates.  NOT NOT NOT.  Between compost and coco coir, you can't add enough perlite to get proper drainage.
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That's painting with a broad brush.  There's a wide spectrum of things that are considered compost.  Not all of them inhibit drainage.
 
While bark doesn't seem to be readily available around here (They had some heaping bags of redwood mulch at the local hardware store, but not sure if that's suitable or not), sand is extremely cheap in bulk, so now I'm wondering if that might be worth a try too, since I've heard coarse play sand as a filler material drains extremely well.
 
DontPanic said:
 
That's painting with a broad brush.  There's a wide spectrum of things that are considered compost.  Not all of them inhibit drainage.
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Such as?  Not necessarily saying that you're wrong, but if you step up, please qualify...
 
I'm still learning about gardening.
 
But one topic that's surprised me with it's diversity is composting.
 
Composting Grass does one thing, leaf composting does another thing, bark and wood compost is something else, and then household scraps do something else.
 
You may want to promote bacterial activity, or you may want to promote fungal activity.
 
You may want to promote worm activity, or you may want to target other insects.
 
You'll get a different compost depending on how you manage it.
 
Maybe I'm a rare exception, but from my personal experience, adding compost to my soil has improved the drainage tremendously.  I'm sure I've made some mistakes with how I use my compost, but hurting my drainage has never been one of the issues I've encountered.
 
 
Takanotsume said:
While bark doesn't seem to be readily available around here (They had some heaping bags of redwood mulch at the local hardware store, but not sure if that's suitable or not), sand is extremely cheap in bulk, so now I'm wondering if that might be worth a try too, since I've heard coarse play sand as a filler material drains extremely well.
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The last few entries on this topic got me curious as to the difference between "Mulch" and "Compost".
 
It's worth a Google search if you want to learn more.
 
In short, most people use the terms interchangeably (I know I did).
 
But mulch is some form of organic matter that's intended to be applied on the surface of the soil, usually to suppress weeds.
 
Compost is decomposed organic matter that's meant to be mixed into your soil.
 
If you buy something from the store called "Mulch" (and if the material is labeled correctly), it might cause problems if you mix it in with your potting soil.
 
Usually, commercial "mulch" is often un-aged bark or woody products.  If you mix it into your soil, it will begin the process of turning into "compost".  While it's starting that process, it can suck the nutrients out of the soil, depriving the plants of these nutrients.
 
You could buy one of these heaping bags of redwood mulch and age it for a year.  Then it might be some decent compost suitable for mixing into your soil.
 
I am still curious to know what forms of "compost" are not intended to be used a moisture/nutrient retention amendment.  I have put some thought into this, and still can't think of any compost which does not hold moisture.
 
But I will reiterate - as a RULE (to which there may be some limited exception): compost heavy mixes are for drier climates.  If you live in an area with heavy rains, and/or humidity, high compost mixes are not your friend.  If you live in a dessert, or have a cool dry mountain climate, compost heavy mixes can be very helpful.
 
Until a few years ago, I actually didn't believe anyone who told me they planted in pure compost.  This exercise took me down a lot of different paths, and still requires a tremendous amount of qualifying, before giving a solid recommendation.  But i still think that if you have compost, and you've planted in large amounts of it, barring some really good reason, you're just wasting a precious commodity.  A little bit goes a really long ways.
 
The_NorthEast_ChileMan said:
Wouldn't the "starting" point, garden soil-potting media-raised bed-etc.,  be an influence on how the compost acts?

According to University of Minnesota Extension :

Adding compost to light, sandy soil helps it hold moisture and nutrients.
Adding compost to heavy soil improves drainage.
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It *might*, if they qualified exactly what the compost is, and what level of "heavy" we're talking about, and where.  And as you've pointed out many times to other users, they are talking about soil, which is not the same as container media.  As most of us seasoned growers know, when building container mixes, all the components work together as a system, and they all have to be regarded somewhat equally, and in the context of your growing region. (my post specifically addressed someone planting in a container)
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Let's also not forget that extension offices are established to give advice about what works in a particular area.  So if they tell you what to do in Minnesota, that's probably what works in Minnesota.  
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Of course, I can also be wrong.  If you know of a compost that increases drainage in a heavy container mix, all that I've asked is for that information. 
 
I have a hunch that it was verticillium wilt that killed my aji panca/limons (And is currently afflicting my aji amarillo), not any kind of issue of with soil PH or nutrients because the symptoms can highly resemble a nutrient deficiency (And looked exactly like what I had seen on the plants when they started losing all of their leaves) and my plants never showed signs of recovery with light, spaced-out doses of nutrients. It also thrives in soils that don't drain quickly (Which was clearly the case for the Pro-Mix as my plants would sometimes go over a week in full sun without starting to droop).
 
That said, I think I probably need to make something that dries out within just a few days to minimize chances of the fungus getting established.
 
I don't think I had enough perlite in my coco coir plants either because they were also taking a very long time to start drooping.
 
If you can't get anything else to work, I'd take you back to the worst case scenario, and recommend that you try a cactus mix.  This would be the option for when you absolutely can't get moisture under control any other way.
 
Whats the best way to renew/recharge/sterilize(..?) old potting mix...? Is that even acceptable/possible..?
 
The mix I'm talking about is a peat based, worm casting, perlite, eggshell, dr earth org fertilizer, couple pinches of lime, media mix. It always was hydrophobic but bottom watering solved that fine...
 
I finally found a bagged soil that's actually working really well, which is Good Dirt potting mix. The ingredients listed are just spaghnum peat moss, aged forest products, and perlite, though it claims to be made with byproducts from the peat harvesting process,
 
Despite being peat-based it rehydrates very easily (Which was not at all the case for the Pro Mix I had been using prior) and remains fluffy/spongy in texture either wet or dry. It also dries out a lot faster, but given the high humidity that's probably for the better.
 
The only problem is the price, as $10 per eight quarts is rather steep and they don't seem to sell it in bulk around here.
 
I wish knew what exactly makes the mix special since I'm sure there's a way to create a cheaper, home-made substitute.
 
Getting read to start a raised-bed setup, but I have a problem: The hardware stores nearby seem to be all sold out of raised-bed mix. I was planning on using the Kellogg Raised Bed Mix, but they're out nearby. What they have a lot of is Kellogg Container Mix and various raised bed soil. From what I've seen they're pretty sparse on most the the different components I could used to make my own that I've seen around. Enough for a small container or two, but not full raised beds.

Any tips? This is my first time doing anything with any sort of garden.
 
Pharthan said:
Any tips? This is my first time doing anything with any sort of garden.
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Sorry, have never made raised beds - always did the reverse....
 
Instead of buying/putting ^up^ 8-10-12 tall boards all around with support corner posts then filling this pit with hundreds of dollars of bought soil I'd dig a 3' wide trench X as long as my yard allowed and as deep as the loam depth allowed....usually 5 to 7 inches deep. Then built  Lasagna Gardening  bed inside this row using the soil removed as one of the inter spaced layers.of green - brown - soil - compost - etc./repeat....Then topping with a weed block/row cover for relatively maintenance  free summer of pepper growing....
 
As always, YMMV....
 
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