What are your essential nutrients and supplements for your plants?

Dr. Who said:

Green Sand is best used by those who re-use/re-amend soils. Green Sand is mighty slow release. It's not doing much at all that first run, and doesn't need to be re-amended for around a year+...
The No -Till organic guys are the perfect end user of this product....

I add it to only one soil I mix for bloom, and don't re-amend that (Green Sand) for like 18 months. Even then I'm only adding back 2/3 of what I first used. That works for "me."

Rock dust's are slow release and re-emend at about the exact same rates.

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Chunky Stool said:

None of the home depots around here carry the big one -- and all they have is BX, which holds a lot of water. Perlite is cheap and it's always easy to mix it in, but mixing can be a pain on a large scale.
I always liked promix HP because I can use it straight of the bag(block) and get consistent results.

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Tyleb173rd said:

I inoculate new beds with a scoop of the oldest and most composted castings. We are a family of five so we have enough food trim for multiple worm bins. They get mostly veggie trim like broccoli stems and cauliflower stalks. They also get egg shells and banana peels. All of the food trim is cut into smaller pieces and then frozen. Once frozen I put the pi3ces in my Vita Prep blender and purée. I then add the egg shells and banana peel and I pulse it until well blended.

I prepare beds ahead of time with layered coco, perlite, shredded paper and dried stems. When it’s time to feed I layer more bedding but in between each layer I pour a little worm food smoothie. Within hours they are smashing the smoothie. Hundreds of worms just ball up around it. It’s awesome.

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Chunky Stool said:

I think that's the small bale, not the 3.8 cu ft.

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Chunky Stool said:

Ever try calcined clay instead of perlite?
It holds water, has a high CEC, and plants love it!

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SchmoeJoe said:

I used to use it my self for the double dig method of starting outdoor planting beds. I stopped when I started noticing that almost all of the perlite in it was crushed to dust from the pressure of being bailed.

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Tyleb173rd said:

Not yet. I actually bought some kitty litter a few days ago but I believe it’s the wrong kind. My guess is it was sodium bentonite and not calcium.

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Tyleb173rd said:

Not yet. I actually bought some kitty litter a few days ago but I believe it’s the wrong kind. My guess is it was sodium bentonite and not calcium.

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Chunky Stool said:

I think bentonite is the "clumping" variety, which isn't what you want. Calcined clay has the consistency of ground up bricks and will not clump -- ever.
I like "Special Kitty" all natural from Wal-mart. Been using it for a couple of years and have zero complaints. Plants totally dig it!

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Chunky Stool said:

I've never seen perlite that had a consistent size. If you want consistent particle size, you've gotta screen it yourself.
There's no way baling pressure causes the perlite in promix to crumble.
Why do you care anyway? Consistent particle size is what matters if you want lots of void space.
Otherwise, the smallest particles will fill all of the cavities. In this case, peat would be the filler.
Perlite is added to reduce the amount of water a given volume of soil can hold -- not aerate it.

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Abiqua said:

Calcium.....you can recover from ANY other kind of deficiency, but not Ca, if you don't have enough for the start, you will never catch up.....

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Abiqua said:

Calcium.....you can recover from ANY other kind of deficiency, but not Ca, if you don't have enough for the start, you will never catch up.....

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SchmoeJoe said:

I'm really not concerned with how consistent the size is. I'd think that a little variation would actually help. As far as the perlite being crushed into dust from bailing I've seen it myself. Open up a bail and more often than not everything that looks like a piece of perlite is already a pile of dust. I don't think that particles that small are going to do much for improving soil texture. Even the manager and other employees of the store I go to agreed about not using bailed soil for the same reason.

Perlite is meant to improve texture. It will hold more water than some types of soil after being watered but will also hold pockets of air after the soil has had a chance to dry out bit. Look at almost any soil mix made for high drainage/aeration and they will, more often than not, have a higher ratio of perlite.

It's beneficial for improving soil in either direction except for the fact that it doesn't keep its consistency for very long. It's no big deal if you're not reusing your soil or using it in long term planting beds but I'd at least make sure that the perlite hasn't been crushed into dust before you even buy it.

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Flowki said:

Is it possible you can have a no til pot that you keep adding new top layers too, cut out the old stem leave in the old roots and put in an established cutting?.

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Chunky Stool said:

"No till" works better with large pots (30+ gal).
Soil in smaller pots usually collapses & becomes compacted after a couple of grows.

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Chunky Stool said:

You totally ignored what I said about particle size and void space (air pockets). Ever heard of a Perched Water Table (PWT)?
Maybe this will help:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1423691/container-soils-water-movement-and-retention-xvi

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SchmoeJoe said:

I didn't ignore it at all. The perlite I've seen in bailed soils is literally reduced to dust. There may be around 50% of it that isn't those are very small bits left over from the larger pieces that weren't completely destroyed.

I considered what you said before responding and decided that the "voids" created by tiny pieces of perlite and what amounts to dust are negligible and irrelevant, respectively.

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