Potting/planting Mix Quality

sternus1 starts with ...
Has anyone else noticed a drop in the quality of potting mix recently?

I'm finding that I am increasingly having to add pure topsoil to the mix when planting out a tree because even the higher-end brands of potting mix are getting to the point that they are mostly only good for mulch. Searles Premium is the only one that seems to be any good anymore, osmocote has really gone downhill and is filled with large chunks of wood. It looks more like compost than anything else.

s

Gaztree says...
Just a few points.
Potting mix is for potting.
Planting mixes are less important and relate more to the current conditions of the soil you are planting into.
Loosen soil to the depth of the root ball. Dig a hole 2 to 3 times the diameter of the root ball. In very sandy soils you could add about 5% zeolite (coarse) and/or water crystals to the original soil. You can also add compost into the mix but only use it in the top 100 to 200mm of soil, 10% is plenty. Mulch to no more than 80mm.

Brain says...
It's really depends on your luck, i've been buying the same brand, the Searles Premium 50L one over the years now and there are batches that are just terrible. i.e. they basically turn into saw dust but on the flip size there has been some batches that is quite good.

I would love to be able to do my own mixes, by buying the different raw ingredients and mix it in a cement mixer.

JohnMc1 says...
A lot of potting mixes look suspiciously like the composted green material from the tip, with maybe a little sand thrown in.

Juie 1 says...
John, I'm pretty sure they are all made from composted wood waste with added sand. Nothing wrong with that - is there?

20 years ago, in my district at least, prunings etc were buried at the tip. A letter to the shire recommending they be turned into mulch was rejected as impractical. I live in a semi-rural/ orchard area, so there was a LOT of wood being buried.
I'm pleased to see it put to a better use!

Brain says...
wood being buried can be a good thing, try google hugelkultur garden bed. :)

JohnMc1 says...
Nothing wrong with them turning the composted wood at the tip into potting mixes, although I have seen stuff in there that shouldn't be there. The fellow giving you the ticket at the tip should scrutinise what's being thrown off a little more closely.
I make up my own mix a wheelbarrow lot at a time and might throw in a bag. Pinebark is only $30 a bobcat scoop, and that's a lot of beautiful fine bark, the best additive in my opinion, unless you have access to peanut hulls.

Juie 1 says...
"Recycling requires energy." Yes, but usually far less energy (depending on what you are talking about) than throwing out stuff and creating new.

And in many cases it avoids a build-up of wastes, eg, plastic turned into useful items rather than filling up the tip.

sternus1 says...
Julie so long as you drive a car, use an oven, turn on a pc or a gas stove, buy groceries, live in a house, wear leather anything, or PU anything, take medications, buy things in plastic packaging, or wear a pair of sports shoes, all the recycling in the world won't make any difference. I'm not singling you out--I'm saying that it is ultimately impossible for anybody to be ecologically neutral and participate in the society in which you do, because the artifice of human civilization is built and runs on dirty energy, and not you, nor I, will ever escape this catch 22. There are very few people on this earth who are truly green, and you nor I will never rank amongst them. Recycling does not, and will not, make any difference in any meaningful way to halt the destruction of the Earth.

If you really want to know the Math of this, it's simple:

Resources increase and decrease incrementally, whereas human populations, and needs for energy, increase exponentially. Therein it is inarguable that the Earth cannot support human civilization indefinitely. We are only able to live the kind of lives we do by taxing natural resources, mostly in the forms of dirty fossil fuels, that have accumulated over billions of years. Those resources are depleting rapidly right now, and we've only been using them for hundreds of years (since the industrial revolution). However, the average life span is much longer than it was during the industrial revolution--so there's more of us, using more things, and doing more stuff, for longer.


Actually, sometimes recycling can be worse, because recycling plastics releases SF6 into the atmosphere, which is over 20,000 times worse than C02 as a warming particulant. Recycling plastics effectively doubles the release of this because it has to be processed twice.

Steel, copper, and other metals will not stop being mined irrespective of how much of these things are recycled, because recycling does not meet demand. And not all metallurgies are created equal--you can't just melt down a bunch of soda cans and refashion these into bullbars or housing frames.

And is all recycling good? Depleted uranium is used in almost all military munitions--that is, in bullets, because it is heavier than lead and cheaper.

So please, by all means, recycle--but if you think this makes any difference to anything, you're mistaken. And if you want to contribute to something that might just save the world, send some money to contribute this project, because while the green thinktank is dropping acid and painting ponies or whatever, these guys are creating stars, and figuring out what matter is made of. It's this kind of stuff that is going to be the difference:

http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/large-hadron-collider