soil Using pine bark in my soil

[Hammerhead]

Gonna try a Carolina Reaper in a container on my patio and have a question for you folks. I've seen folks on here using pine bark in with their soil mixture and was wondering if you mix it up in the soil or are you putting a layer ( 2-3 inches) on the bottom of the container to help with drainage? If you are mixing it with the soil, are you breaking it down into smaller pieces?  Any help is appreciated, Pat.

 

[meinchoh]

Pine fines (very small pieces) are fantastic as a mix with your soil. Ideally, they should be no bigger than 1/2". They decompose nicely and provide aeration for your roots, while holding moisture. Mix with soil instead of placing at the bottom of the pot or layering them.

 

[juanitos]

you can put pine bark (bigger peices) on top as a mulch.

The stuff you mix into the soil is finer like meinchoh says. you dont need to put a layer at the bottom doesn't really help that much.

 

[chile_freak]

Pine fines (very small pieces) are fantastic as a mix with your soil. Ideally, they should be no bigger than 1/2". They decompose nicely and provide aeration for your roots, while holding moisture. Mix with soil instead of placing at the bottom of the pot or layering them.

all of this is true, except, not only are the pine fines fantastic, even the mini nuggets work well, as long as they are not your only aeration in your soil. The only problem is they absorb a lot of nitrogen, so you will have to feed more in the beginning, however this is awesome when you reuse your soil the next year, as the nuggets break down they release that nitrogen back into the soil like a slow release fertilizer!