Before using Al's recipe, I repotted every 2, sometimes 3 years. Always adding the organic stuff to my water (and sometimes directly on the soil) kept the mix from shrinking. I did this out of habit and usually to go to a larger pot. With Al's recipe, I don't know, it's only been 4.5 months. The houseplants are your typical green foliage plants you can get at any nursery. However, there is one tree type plant (I'm terrible with names) that has been growing in the same previous "old style" mix for 4 years. I add crushed leaves to that along with the alfalfa/soybean water and some compost now and then. I have to prune that treelike plant twice a year and it is very healthy even though the old soil recipe is 4 years old. (You know, potting soil, perlite, bonemeal, alfalfa meal, handful of compost for microbes and more perlite - LOL!) I can only guess that Al's mix will last much longer but I don't know for sure. It will take a couple more years to tell but the very nature of his recipe seems like it would last MUCH longer than my old typical organic recipe. I'll say this, I will use Al's stuff from now on. With your more permanent plantings I can understand your worry about shrinking, compaction and perched water tables. This hasn't happened with my treelike plant indoors and has never happened with the large containers I have outside in wooden boxes, that get organic amendments every year to replenish old stuff. (These are large, 18"x14"x12" deep and drainage is very good.) In fact, every couple of years I have to remove some soil because the amendments pile up too high. These containers are large enough that I can add wood chip mulch to them. These containers almost mimic in the ground growing IMHO. Overall, my organic soils are replenished enough so they really stay "fresh" but I really can't say what would happen with outside trees and roses. (My wife grows annuals in our outside boxes.) Sorry. However, if my old style organic mixes are sustainable in large containers I'm just about POSITIVE they would do better with Al's recipe. I see absolutely no reason why Al's stuff wouldn't perform better over the long run. Possibly MUCH better IMHO. As you know, drainage is "king" and Al's stuff excels in that area better than any mix I have EVER tried. I mean it! It ain't even close IMHO. I'd guess (and this only a guess) that with Al's recipe you could easily get 4-6 years out of his stuff using organic feeds in a large container. Al is discounting his stuff relative to organic practices IMHO. I mean that in a nice way! In fact he's WAY underestimating his stuff when it comes to common sense, "ordinary" organics IMHO.

I've been using alfalfa for years and reading this forum for years and I've never heard of triacontanol. I have read on occasion that there was a growth stimulator in alfalfa, but I would never use a material simply for that reason. The reason I use alfalfa (or corn meal, or corn gluten meal, or wheat flour, or coffee grounds, or soybean meal, or cottonseed meal) is that it feeds protein to the soil microbes. If you want to feed protein to your soil microbes indoors, I dilute milk in water and water with that. If you water a pure peat mix with milky water for three weeks, the soil will completely change as the soil fungi take off. The soil will even smell different (after the slightly sour milk smell dissipates). It will smell incredibly fresh and clean. I tried dusting the soil with coffee grounds to get the protein from them, but the milk worked 1000% better.

Thanks for the Horticultural Myths link, I have saved it for more thorough reading.. I can get alfalfa pellets and just scatter them, and then turn the hose on them and later use my hand cultivator to scratch them into the mulch, they seem to break down prety fast, and I do this when I can no longer see the remains of the last scattering....I also scatter Milorganite and Black Hen and Black Cow, and mulch, so it all becomes a mush of stuff.....I have used Fish Meal also, but can no longer obtain it so have switched to Fish Emulsion, and think I will pour some in a large pail of water and throw it around the beds.... I have a problem with Rheumatoid Arthritis so have to limit the labor involved, seeking the easiest path.... sally

I have an off-and-on problem with rabbits, so the alfalfa tea used to scare me a little, but what has worked for me is to just scatter the pellets around and water them well right away so they turn into a mush. That's all I do because I'm lazy, but if you aren't and you have a real rabbit problem, you could scratch the mush into the soil to make it even less appealing to rabbits, or make a real tea as Jeanne says. It's really easy and REALLY worth it. I use it in my entire garden, not just the roses and clematis. The only downside is that it smells bad, but try it and you'll probably agree it's worth it. Oh, and when you buy it, you have to get it without any added salt.