Totally agree with the humidity thing and I like those percentages too actually, I went to 45% after you suggested actually and I like it and rep that amount...havent looked back and was just curious if 50 is possible or good, and seems you have found the way, mixing all composts into one, I always here of peoples worms going apeshit crazy in their compost piles..
interesting you see sand as aeration, but I guess it is, hey. that list just gets better and better and better and I can see the value in a diversified mix, I prefer at least 4 things as well, if not more.. 6 actually. 7 with those coco-wool strips, those sound amazing and I use coco so why not, but the young ones always have no skin so.. yeah sometimes I wish I was American but then I realize we all need these goodies in Canada more avail..
lava rock
bio char
sand
pumice
rice hulls
and rotting wood chunks
it'd be sick if we had those all mixed and made into a crazy aeration product, Don-Monkey's super arie Aeration
I wish I could buy that here.
@Mr.Head wouldn't that rock?
heh, yea, the thing with sand is granted it doesn't hold water, but it reaaally helps in drainage, and with all that organic material, humus, and such it has such a damn awesome CEC rate, but that does come with a downside, in that it'll hold and retain more water, so that warrants the need for more aeration.
in fact what i do, when i add castings to my plants is i gently scrape away all the surface of the existing container, as we all know over the course of time the aeration tends to "float", especially perlite, now i put the word "float" in parentheses because it doesn't float at all, it simply settles, just think goldpanning, with any soil agitation (watering) the heavier more dense material will settle as the lighter stuff "floats"
so anyways, when i do topdresses i scrape away all that mostly aeration and then match that at a 1/1 ratio with the castings.
along with the comfrey of course.
but as a rule i never add castings to a plant without adding equal amounts of aeration.
in regards to the coco strips... so what i do is buy the bag of coco plant liners, like the ones they have as bases for like boston ferns and whatnot.
get the bag of coco plant liners and throw them outside in the sun..
sounds funny but in about a couple months the sun, humidity, and weather will make it all fluff out, and loosen up, then you can cut it into smaller squares or strips, or you can simply start to pull lil wispy clumps of it off, those lil clumps are like springs, so in tiny clumps in your soil it tends to prevent any soil compaction.
Soil compacting in an organic mix will turn them anaerobic like overnight, and that is BAD for the plant, it's soil health, and the types of microbes present.
Not to mention anaerobic microbes tend to create toxic gasses as well, Byproducts include hydrogen sulfide which smells like rotten eggs, butyric acid which smells like vomit, ammonia which stingin your nose, and vinegary smell too...
Anaerobic conditions foster pathogenic bacteria and kill off beneficial aerobic bacteria.
mmmmm yummy...
Anyways..
The reason i ever even started doing the coco strips thing was merely because i messed up on a plant container while trying to make additional drainage holes, and the bottom had a bigass chunk missing from the container, so i put a bit of chicken wire, and lined it with coco wool to keep the soil in it, anyways, that plant did damn well, better than it's cloned sisters in different pots, so after harvesting, i ALWAYS do a post harvest rootball inspection, and i have learned a LOT from doing this over the yrs, and in this case? I learned that a loose, humid pocket of coco wool and air in the soil makes massive, fuzzy, dense, happy looking white roots.
Annnd there we are, ever since then i have used it, and found that it may be the best thing for preventing soil compaction.
. How many tonnes of grass would you suggest