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Post by mountaindweller on Feb 23, 2015 17:43:43 GMT -5
I made potting mix and seed raising mix out of various ingredients with a completely unscientific approach. All in all I find the ingredients mainly to be too expensive. Sand is great but costs $75 a ton from the landscape yard. Compost - I never have enough Horse poo - I rip forever grass out of the pots Cocopeat the cheapest source I know of is big W and it costs $3 one block Garden soil - I never have enough Ready mixed about $75 a ton the cheap stuff in the supermarket is maybe not very good and a bag costs at least $4. How do you make quality potting mix without breaking the bank? Are there bulk sources of coco peat in Australia? backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by steev on Feb 23, 2015 21:33:43 GMT -5
I bet if you trash-bag the horse-poo, wet it just a tad, and leave it in the sun, your grass problems will be solved in a few months.
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Post by reed on Feb 23, 2015 22:11:45 GMT -5
I use horse poo but not until it sits in a pile for a year or so. If I'm in a hurry I cover it with clear plastic and one summer will fix it up. I also use all the leaves and grass clippings I can save. I mix that up with just plain dirt out of the garden and sand. I have a good supply of free sand and river silt. When ever the water comes up it leaves a layer of it on the boat ramps and I go get it before they use the fire hoses to wash it back in.
I have never been able to bring myself to pay for dirt with one exception. Last year a church in town was building a parking lot and they were scraping off the top 6 inches of soil. I bought two giant dump truck loads for $100 delivered. Never farmed, tilled or built on Ohio River bottom dirt, you can till it with your fingers. I only have one little pile left, moved all the rest with my shovel and wheel barrel.
Anyway, my seed starting material is also completely unscientific and seems to work fine. As far as I'm concerned anything I can find, composted or not, mixed in to loosen up dirt from the garden works.
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Post by diane on Feb 23, 2015 22:26:45 GMT -5
Years ago I used to mix ingredients to sow my seeds in. At the same time I had my school class start seeds, and for that I bought a bagful of ready-mixed seed compost. The school plants did not get as much attention as my home ones, though I think the janitor watered them on weekends.
It was amazing to see the difference in the plants.
I have never mixed my own again.
I use a bale of one of the Sunshine mixes. Works great - for vegetables, alpines, bulbs, shrubs. The only change in my routine is to use pure peat for rhododendron seeds and fern spores.
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Post by templeton on Feb 24, 2015 17:22:50 GMT -5
MD,
as with all things, depends a bit on what your needs are, time available, and local supplies. And the end use of the material. Long lived plants require better stuff, stuff you are selling to market for quick tyrnover needs less nutrients and pot-life.
I tend to to use local my own compost, sieved down to get rid of big lumps, some of my precious garden bed soil, recycled potting mix from my seasonal failures - if not a deadly disease mistake - and cocopeat. I get my coco in the 90 litre blocks from Bunnings - avoid the Orchid mix and garden mulch blocks, the bits are way too lumpy. split the blocks open with an axe or splitter from the thin edge- sometimes they have big salty lumps inside from their washing process. This mix can get topped up with the cheap $3 bags of 'standard' potting mix - but check the contents by poking a small hole in the bag and seeing what the contents are, sometimes they are just slightly darkened pine bark chips sometimes they are good stuff. these will need supplemental ferts. I buy 30 kg bags of blood and bone, and throw a few handfuls into the barrow. Decaying leaf mould from under some of my tough garden trees sometimes goes in. I avoid eucs, prefer pittosporum. I can usually plant into this the next day.
Good compost leaf mould can often be had fromunder the big pile of prunings and sticks in the hidden spot down the back - everyone has one of these, don't they - but it takes a few years to get good.
Bagging up weeds and letting em cook over summer is a good way to get broken down material, but can get a bit slimy.
The trade off between time and cost is an important decision - once you start to grow a decent number of plants most of your time should probably be spent doing your area of expertise - growing stuff- not earthmoving. There are lots of burly blokes with loud machines who can do this way more efficiently than you can with a shovel and barrow. Be really selective if you buy in mix - I have a couple of metres of potting poison that i got mixed up cheap, that has been sitting in an ugly pile in the yard for a year while i try to figure out how to get rid of it.
Many arborists will dump free chips if working nearby - but this takes a while to break down, and can introduce unwanted stuff.
There was a great system operating at an indig nursery in Box Hill, Melbourne - they mulched the whole nursery site with good woodchips and sawdust, grew the laid out plants in forestry tubes in frames that kept them just above the underlying chips, for a couple of years, sold the plants then used the now broken down material as the basis of their potting mix with a few supplements. This requires some pretty good site hygiene, and a well prepared site, and a small front loader and storage area for the new and old material.
Hope this stimulates some creativity.
T
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Post by mountaindweller on Feb 24, 2015 22:40:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the information! The bunnings block is good. Usually I have to pay for the chips, but I got once a load for free. I see myself poking holes in bags at Woolies....I love woodchips, it is difficult to get enough of these. backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by steev on Feb 25, 2015 0:43:03 GMT -5
Fresh chips are very good; just be careful digging into a pile thereof; they grow fungal spores very fast; very bad for causing "farmer's cough".
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Post by mountaindweller on Feb 25, 2015 19:02:24 GMT -5
Never thought that the spores cold be a problem for me I always thought that it is great because of the biological activity. Unfortunately, I do not get free chips very often usually they charge $100 for a truckload. backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by diane on Feb 25, 2015 20:36:56 GMT -5
The spores may be good. I've had mushrooms from some chip piles, mostly shaggy manes.
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Post by steev on Feb 25, 2015 23:33:50 GMT -5
Nothing wrong with the spores per se; it's just that they are generated in such quantity very fast in a chips-pile, that we can easily breathe in enough to cause one or two days of wracking cough.
Mmm; shaggy manes, green tomatoes, onions, and bockwurst; that's a stew to warm a chilly day.
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Post by mountaindweller on Feb 26, 2015 5:01:13 GMT -5
Do you use fresh chips in your potting mix?? Potting mix is a real pain in the back, it is always out, mixing is a pain and getting the ingredients too. I have a bit of sand I could sieve and some garden soil some woodchips (several month old, pine) and blood and bone - what do you think of that mix? backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by reed on Feb 26, 2015 7:35:15 GMT -5
I don't like wood in my mixes or garden at all unless it has composted for a good long, long time. Something I do like is the stuff that collects under piles and during transport of firewood. I only use well seasoned wood and the dust, dirt, rotted bark and bug poo is really great stuff.
Sounds like though you are much larger scale than I am so you need larger quantities than you could get from this, even if you do burn wood.
One time I did let the power line trimmers dump some chips out by the mail box, it took years to compost probably because it had a lot of black locust in it. Something really fun was snapping turtles liked to lay eggs in it. Snapping turtles the size of quarters are really cute. I kept one for a pet for a while but he disappeared, I think a great blue heron ate him.
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Post by Al on Feb 28, 2015 5:44:52 GMT -5
I do not need vast quantities of potting compost but my requirements have increased considerably this year as I am trying lots of container grown crops including several 50 litre potato towers. Filling all these with ready made compost would be costly & a potato doesn't need sterilized very fine compost so I am using lots of my own mix. I compost every organic material I can get hold of including chipped prunings, grass clippings from a bowling green & cow manure, also my personal liquid waste.
When well rotted the compost is mixed with loam (rotted turfs or topsoil), about 1:4, throw in a handful of blood, fish & bone per barrow & some frass (mealworm casts). Some greedy plants get a handful of chicken manure pellets too, this mix should get crops off to a good start. If I am sowing beans or peas into this mix I will not add fertilizers as plants will not be in the continer for long, if sowing small seeds I might put a layer of sterile bought compost on top of homemade mix.
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Post by saopk on Mar 13, 2015 15:29:15 GMT -5
I do not need vast quantities of potting compost but my requirements have increased considerably this year as I am trying lots of container grown crops including several 50 litre potato towers. Filling all these with ready made compost would be costly & a potato doesn't need sterilized very fine compost so I am using lots of my own mix. I compost every organic material I can get hold of including chipped prunings, grass clippings from a bowling green & cow manure, also my personal liquid waste. When well rotted the compost is mixed with loam (rotted turfs or topsoil), about 1:4, throw in a handful of blood, fish & bone per barrow & some frass (mealworm casts). Some greedy plants get a handful of chicken manure pellets too, this mix should get crops off to a good start. If I am sowing beans or peas into this mix I will not add fertilizers as plants will not be in the continer for long, if sowing small seeds I might put a layer of sterile bought compost on top of homemade mix. wow i thought all you used was 5-1-1 or gritty mix for your containers do you mean 1:4 ; compost:loam or vice versa? |
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Post by Al on Mar 13, 2015 17:35:57 GMT -5
I did not write my compost mix very clearly:
loam to compost about 1:4, some gritty sand is probably good too, so 1:1:5 is about right.
1 part sand, 1 part loam, 4 or 5 parts compost.
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