I use several different incarnations of it, depending on the plants involved. It's the best thing I've found since I started growing plants in pots and containers. Al is top shelf in my book. I do not, however, use it for WS. I think it's way too coarse for seed starting. I use a finer version for potting up seedlings.

Turface weighs 35 lbs/cu ft, granite about 50, and pine/fir bark about 10. Since you use them in equal volume a cu ft weighs the average of the three, or about 32 lbs. There are about 7.5 gallons in a cu ft, so it weighs about 4.25 lbs per gallon or a shade over 1 lb/qt, so 44 qts of dry gritty mix would weigh about 50 lbs. FWIW, the gritty mix when saturated weighs about 25% more than a saturated MG or other peat based soil. It's difficult to perceive what might have caused the problem last year - there are just too many variables. I have some hellishly large pots with the gritty mix in them. Those too heavy to carry about, I usually lift them onto a nursery cart/wagon & pull them where I want them - like to store them. If they're REALLY big, like larger than 25 gallons, I use a plank and roll them (like you would roll a barrel on it's bottom edge) up the plank onto the cart. Some, I use a hand truck to move around. I use the gritty mix for figs, but they are so vigorous in their roots, and really NEED repotting so often, that the 5:1:1 mix would also suit them fine. In most cases, to optimize the plant's vitality, figs should go no longer than 2 years between repots. Root congestion very quickly takes a toll on them. If you decide to use the gritty mix, you can find coarse perlite at hydroponics shops in 4 cu ft bags. You can use it in place of the granite on a volume for volume basis, but DO screen it. Best luck, B. Al

I used to live in NJ but I was only 10 so maybe I was still in DUMBO=elephant mode!!! Thanks. Learned something today. Yeah!

1/16" is too fine for the entire mix. Al's recommendation is to use the insect screen or 1/16" mesh for the Turface only, to keep the fines to a low percentage of the mix, and to minimize the money spent on Turface. According to Al, and my experience concurs, the PWT can't happen with particles 1/10th" and larger. I've had PWT in fresh gritty mix when my minimum screen was #10 / 2mm / .0787 inch - bigger mesh than window screen. That happened when I decided to pass the calcined DE reject from the #8 screening, through the smaller #10 Turface screen, and include half of it in the calcined DE portion of the mix. This was in addition to the screened Turface portion. In other words, my proportion of material finer than 1/10" was too high, filled in the spaces between the larger particles, enough to support a perched water table. Not sure why you would water twice daily, but seems to me that if the mix has been screened at 1/16", the bottom of the pot is likely saturated, not drying out, preventing air from circulating from below. HTH.