Sfg minus mel's mix.

14 years ago

Is there any hope for someone that wants to sfg but cannot afford the stuff to make mel's mix. I have a 4x4 bed that is filled with potting soil/mix from walmart. Will this be ok? If I add some fertilizer to it would that help?

One other quick question. I had an old pine tree cut down in my yard. Nothing grow under the tree. There was literally a 18 foot circle with a 2 inch deep pile of pine needles under it. If I scrape away the pine needles could I use that dirt in another bed? I heard 2 different stories. One that pine needles are good and a garden and 2 that the needles sap are bad for a garden. Thanks for any and all advice.

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Comments (4)

Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
Of course it's OK. Have fun.

Never use garden soil in containers, though, as it doesn't have the right properties (nothing to do with needles). We just repotted something recently that was declining for some reason and we found that the MIL threw garden soil in the pot because there was no potting soil in the house.

Dan
homertherat
14 years ago
Somebody asked a question similar to this in the vegetable forum. Basically, raised bed gardens have been around for a very long time and they were filled with potting soil/compost/plain old dirt long before Mel came up with the SFG method.

Your mix should be fine. Compost would be best, but you can substitute fertilizer if you don't have compost.

You can use the pine soil, but it might have a lower pH than some plants like. Pine needles are supposed to have a low pH and make a great mulch for acidic loving plants. Check that first before you use it.
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You didn't do anything "wrong". You grew vegetables! If you use the manure from the home store, make sure it is composted or you could burn plants. All of it that I have seen at the big box stores *is* composted, so you should be OK. I had to top off one of my beds with the very same stuff this year because my compost pile just didn't have enough to get the job done yet. Over time, as we add compost to our beds, we're all going to wind up with higher and higher concentrations of compost and less and less "Mel's Mix." I know I'm not going out to buy three more big bags of vermiculite any time soon. Here's the complete contents of my beds. From here on out the only thing I plan on adding is my own compost. So start a compost pile / bucket / bin and get going. If you have to fill in with some purchased compost, well, you do. I promise everything will be fine :-D
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Compaction is probably not the main worry about the vermiculite, especially in a light mix like Mel's Mix made "by the book." It will eventually "break down" into smaller particles, which is why Mel says to start with the coarsest grade you can find. Over all it will last a long time and make a major contribution to your soil quality. Not only will perlite not do the same task, but perlite will add its nasty texture to your soil, making it unpleasant to handle (which is a very un-SFG thing, as one of the fundamentals of SFG is that you work on your SFG and handle your soil some every day). Perlite will also float to the top of your bed, at which point it will either wash away or sit there not providing any benefit at all to the consistency of your soil. I have no idea about the bark, I would wonder if it is even more acidic than the peat, which wouldn't be a good thing. I don't have any especial love for peat either (although it is worth noting that it is being generated in Canada faster than it is being harvested, and is indeed a renewable resource) but it does seem to result in a soil mix, built by Mel's formula, that was excellent from the very start for growing vegetables and flowers. If I were to make any changes in future boxes I might cut down on or leave out the peat, but my soil formula would alway contain at least 1/3 vermiculite if possible, due to my experience in the pre-raised bed days of the first SFG book, where vermiculite was by far the best addition I made to my native soil, producing better results, that showed quickly and lasted longer, than any of the other stuff we added over the course of many years. In my raised SFG I plan to add a little vermiculite and a lot of fresh compost every year.
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Yeah, technically compost IS fertilizer, but you may have to add a little additional fertilizer to supplement. No two compost batches are the same and depending on what you are growing and the quality of your compost and the variety of veggies you are growing (heavy feeders, light feeders, etc), I would start out with what you have and then wait and see how things go....but be prepared to add a little supplement during the growing season. I always amend my soil with some fertilizer (originally started out with Osmocote but now use a granular organic brand) along with my compost/manure. During the growing season, I may add a dose of fish emulsion as well or side-dress with some additional granular fertilizer. (I garden year-round and always have to be concerned with depleting my soil. My garden beds never get a rest period.) So relax! Enjoy our garden and learn what best works for YOUR garden and expect successes and failures. You learn from both and become a better gardener as a result! Remember, this is supposed to be FUN! :^P
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keski
14 years ago
ML,
I just bought a book on lasagna gardening. The author gives a method for doing raised beds using materials that you find around. She just makes layers of chopped leaves, grass clippings, peat moss, manure. She gathers things from neighbors, etc. Eventually it breaks down. She plants some immediately after filling. So easy and no mixing.

Dan,
Is it part of your job to monitor the SFG forum? You respond so quickly and always have great advice.
Keski
angela12345
14 years ago
Mel teaches filling the garden with just compost in third world countries and places they do not have access to vermiculite and peat moss. So you do not have to do Mel's Mix.

Also, there are some options for doing his mix very cheaply ... if you are anywhere near Lancaster PA, you have access to one of the cheapest sources of coarse vermiculite in the country - W H Milikowski 877-354-7010 $15.25 #7004V Coarse Vermiculite 4cf http://www.whmilikowski.com/index.html. Also a manufacturer for vermiculite is in Lancaster where you may be able to buy it cheaper ? - J. P. Austin Associates 717-481-7801 http://www.jpaustin.com/horicultural.html. Check out the thread titled "Vermiculite Source List - Throughout USA" currently 4 down from this thread for other sources in PA.

For compost, you can try your city's yard waste center. Our leaves are picked up twice annually if we rake them to the curb, also there is a special yard waste truck that comes by weekly if we bag or have them in cans. They collect leaves, grass clippings, shrubbery trimmings, and tree limbs, etc. They are ground in the City's tub grinder, and seasoned about six months before use or sale as compost. Our city will also sell wood chips & mulch & colored wood chips made from the collections. It keeps all of this stuff out of the landfills and they sell it CHEAP ! For example, you can carry your own bag or 35gal trash can and fill it for $3, or you can get 2.5cy (which is 67cf!) for $20 and they will load it in the back of your pickup for you. I have heard many cities have the same type thing and even give it away free. Another way to get cheap compost is call/go by Lowe's and ask if they have any torn bags. I have gotten 3 bags of compost for up to half off this way. So a normal $4.68 1.5cf bag of manure compost was $2.34. And their $1.58 1cf bag of manure compost was about $1.

Peat moss is usually sold in 3 or 3.8 cu ft compressed bales for about $9-10 at Lowe's & Home Depot. The uncompressed expanded volume ends up being about double. I am pretty sure better prices than that could probably be found, but I have never checked.

Even if you don't do any of this, people have grown veggies in just dirt for years. You may need to ammend your garden with fertilizers or whatever. Mel's Mix was just designed to help optimize the results in a way that anyone can follow and be successful.

Sfg minus mel's mix.

Comments (4)

Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)

homertherat

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keski

angela12345

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