kait-s, "I'm just following the directions on my Bu's Brew, and seeping the kelp and guano overnight, and stirring it a bit." Bu's Brew has cow manure as their compost. When I called the company,they said, "What the cows eat is regulated by an organic dairy farm, so our compost is safe." If I were you, I would get an air pump for a fish tank and let the tea brew for at least 24 hours. You don't need air stones as those are a waste of money and get clogged. Just weigh down the end of the air pump hose in the bucket and let it rip. Try this as you will get a much better tea than letting a non aerated tea sit for 12-15 hours. meyermike_1micha, Q When you say grow organic what do you mean? A I don't use any synthetic fertilizers Q Does that mean using a mix with compost and other poops in the mix? A Yes. I only use worm castings in small amounts and small amounts of compost as well. Q Does it mean using a soilless mix and using "organic fertilizers"? A Using part soil-less mix is the only way I know of to get enough oxygen to the roots. Yes I do use organic fertilizers. Q Do you have to transplant very often to avoid compaction of the mix? A No. I use as a potting medium that I feel is the most important key to my success in organic container gardening. As I'm sure you know a container medium with a base mix of compost and or peat moss will decompose very fast and your roots no longer get the oxygen they require. Q Do you have to bring them indoors at the end of the season, and if so, do you wrestle with pests in such a rich decomposing mix? A No. I live on the west coast, Orange County CA. As far as the pesky fungus gnats, I don't know what their potting medium is but I would guess it's mainly compost. They could add some other medium as a mulch to detour the fungus gnats away. I find growing organics in containers challenging and rewarding at the same time. There is definitely a fine line to walk but it takes a lot of time educating yourself, which most folks don't want to do. To me, it's definitely my serenity.

I've been ws for 7+ years and generally start my perennial seeds anytime after winter solstice though mostly in late January/February. Annuals get sown in late March/early April. Most everything sprouts by midMay. I probably should have covered the jugs during some of those daily rains. With the changing weather patterns I will consider it a lesson learned and hope that we don't have another such spring for many years. Some of the jugs were "second chance" jugs, seeds that didn't sprout last year and given a second sowing to see if they might another time. Perhaps those seeds would not have sprouted this year anyway. A few of the old reliables sprouted, alcea, aquilegia, dianthus, papaver, penstemon, platycodyn. Annuals: antirrhinum, cleome, gomphrena, mirabalis, nasturtium, nicotiana, portulaca, salvia, and zinnia.

Yes, and using mixes specifically for 'potted' plants can be quite tricky to say the least. A balancing act too that is one does not master, your growing experience can be quite limited or very rewarding. For me it's all about sacrifice's, sacrifices made in order to attain the best possible growing experience possible without sacrificing the integrity of the mix and the vitality of my trees and their root systems. One has to be able to foresee any potential issues before deciding what to use. What might do a great job in the 'summer' might be the death of your trees in the 'winter' months. For instance: One could use a mix that hold much more water for the summer while in the end could kill your trees holding too much water come the winter and shorter days. One could use a mix that holds PWT that can be used to your advantage and disadvantage if it rains too much, stays cold for long periods of time, or gets worst as the mix break down. One could use a mix that dried out very rapidly, almost too fast for the summer and in the winter and then in summer loose their trees to not enough moisture. One could also use a mix in which you have to check the moisture levels quite often in each and every pot, for some hundreds, or use a mix that you can water every time you water for all at once without fear of root rot without having to check to see if they need water. The 511 to me is a good balance. You can add just enough smaller particles to keep the soil mix moist longer in summer while reasonably dry out in the winter in a good amount of time. You can use it on all your plants and water all your plants at the same time whether they are still moist or not. The 511 also allows you to store your trees at very cold temps, even though the pots are still moist without fear of rot. The 511 also dries out evenly and holds its structure much longer than peat or fine particle based mixes.. So If I were to match up the 'pros' with the 'cons'. I'd say the 'pros' far outweigh using a 511 mix or the like in my favor. It might be a great idea for each of us to decide what you are willing to sacrifice in the winter or the summer and find a happy medium that will work for ALL seasons to save yourself a lot of headache and certain trees their demise. What is forgiving in the summer time or in a nice warm brightly lit greenhouse structure might not bode so well for trees in less than ideal conditions come shorter colder wintery days indoors. MIke

Soils that hold perched water are inherently limiting, because, as long as perched water occupies a fraction of the medium, it limits oxygen availability, which in turn limits root function and can kill fine roots. This can and does occur when perched water is in play, even if the plant appears perfectly healthy. Lack of oxygen can quickly kill the finest roots, which are the roots that do the lion's share of the work. This triggers chemical messengers that signal the plant to stop putting on top growth until the damage to roots is repaired. When this occurs in cyclic fashion, the loss of potential can be very significant, even if the plant appears healthy. The average grower is usually content if a plant appears healthy, but it's still good to know that, even though loss of potential is very often inconspicuous, inconspicuous does not equal nonexistent. As you might imagine, the longer the plant has to endure the periods of saturated soil, the greater the loss of potential and the more conspicuous the manifestation of trouble in the root zone becomes, in terms of the plant's appearance. The gritty mix is purposely designed to be flexible in how much water it can hold while still not holding any significant amount of perched water. This, because it holds (nearly) all of its water within internally porous particles (Turface/bark), on the surface of all soil particles, and at the interface where soil particles contact each other; whereas, media that have significant variation in particle size and include a significant fraction of fine material, can/do hold a significant amount of water in the small spaces between particles, that, when the soil is dry, are occupied by air. That is the water that robs plants of their potential. That said, I don't think anyone really cares what path a grower chooses insofar as what their chosen medium provides in terms of the length of appropriate watering intervals. Information is provided to help people understand the impact water retention has on vitality/growth/yields/......, and to help them get more from the growing experience if their nurturing bone needs a better workout. I want to circle back again to the idea of lost potential and provide some supportive perspective. Because I'm fairly well known to the gardening community in mid-Michigan, I have a good number of people who call on me for help with their plants - both woody plants more herbaceous houseplants. I get to see, close up, how much potential can be lost because of any limiting factor. There is no doubt it's possible for issues related to root health to rob more than 100% of the plant's potential for growth and vitality. Plants are shedding organisms, and growth is measured as an increase in the weight of a plant's dry mass. Unless cultural conditions allow a plant to create more food/energy than required to to keep it's systems orderly, they cannot grow. In fact, if they use more energy than they produce, they shed parts. Even conspicuous extension growth in stems/branches/roots, or multiplicative growth of leaves and/or branches cannot be considered to be 'growth' if the dry weight of organs the plant sheds is greater than the dry weight of new leaves and branch/stem extension. There are many factors that can affect a plant's ability to grow to its genetic potential. Some might have might have notice my regular use of the term 'vitality' when I write. It is actually a plant's vitality that we hold any sway over, not its vigor. 'Vigor' is a constant. Mother Nature provides every plant its own, predetermined level of vigor by programming it into each plant. Vigor is the genetic potential every plant is encoded with, and the measure of vigor is the plant's ability to resist stress and strain. Vitality, in contrast, is variable - a dynamic condition that is the measure of a plant's ability to cope with the hand it's dealt, culturally speaking. A good way to look at the difference between vigor and vitality is to look to genetics for the level of vigor and to things cultural for the plant's vitality. It's up to us to provide the cultural conditions that will ensure our plants' vitality. Vigor and vitality are distinctly different, and a good case could be made that they are unrelated, but there is no need to delve deeper into that point. A plant can be very vigorous and still be dying because of poor vitality. Far more often than not the term 'vigor' or 'vigorous' is misapplied, where in their stead the terms 'vital' or 'vitality' would have been more appropriate. Reduced vitality is what we witness when our plants are growing under stress or strain due to the fact they are being asked to grow close to or beyond the limits they're genetically programmed to tolerate. The paragraph immediately above was a lead-in to the following point. Some books and literature tend to leave those of us who grow plants in containers impressed with the notion that the overwhelming % of plants are so individually different that they each need a care regimen unique to and designed specifically around each species. The fact is, a very high % (nearly all) plants commonly grown as houseplants (excluding cacti and those succulents that require or respond best to long periods between waterings during known intervals of the growth cycle) do best under nearly the same set of conditions. IOW, what is required to optimize vitality/growth is nearly uniform. It's the plants' ability/inability to tolerate extremes that has the most significant affect on vitality/growth. Plants are genetically encoded with a measure of vigor that is constant. Vitality (roughly health), OTOH, is a measure of how well a plant tolerates the cultural hand it is dealt, and that's on us. Some plants tolerate wide variance in cultural conditions because they are very vigorous, while their not so vigorous counterparts might insist on more exacting parameters if they are to perform well in containers. It's not that plants vary so much in terms of what they prefer as they do in what they are able to tolerate. This is especially true when it comes to media and root health. Almost all commonly grown houseplants and a fair % of succulents/cacti will do perfectly well in a medium that supports little to no perched water. For the most part, as water retention increases, the potential (growth/vitality) for an increasingly large fraction of plants decreases. So to answer your question, "Which plant, which mix?": With care given to appropriate watering and nutritional supplementation, the gritty mix can provide greater opportunity for most plants to realize a larger measure of their genetic potential. It's more forgiving of grower error, as long as you're fertilizing and watering appropriately. The downside is, it's heavier, costs more to make, and it takes more effort to make (because it needs to be screened) than say the 5:1:1 mix. I currently use it almost exclusively because bonsai is stressful (for plants), and my woody material recovers much faster in more open (higher air porosity and no perched water) soils. Plants with a high level of genetic vigor are good candidates for soils like the 5:1:1 mix. I figure if a plant is so vigorous I can count on it needing an annual repot, I'll use the 5:1:1 mix. If it will be 2 years or more in the same medium/pot, I almost always opt for the gritty mix. That's just me - YMMV. While there is no right or wrong associated with your choices, your choices can have a great deal influence on the results you can expect/achieve. Al