Do you add fertilizer or otherwise tinker with Mel's Mix

16 years ago

Hi everyone,

I realize I posted a bunch of quesitons related to this last wee,k and this question was one of many from that post. I got a few answers, but would love more, so I'm reposting this as the main question. Hope that's OK.

Do you, or are you planning to, tinker with Mel's Mix?

ALSO,

Do you incorporate any organic fertilizers into the soil when you mix it?

I've seen quite a few assorted posts here where people have asked about fertilizer (which Mel says you don't even need)... and others where they say they omitted peat or added more compost. And I was surprised to see a bunch of posters saying they were overall very disappointed in Mel's mix.

Planting IN my native soil isn't an option for me, so I am going to be planting on the soil, over a weed cloth, in boxes, using Mel's mix or some variation on it.

Also, I want to go deeper, probably 12" but maybe even 16", so I'm curious if there are specific modifications you'd make for deeper boxes to keep the "fluffy" texture from compacting so much.

Anyway... thanks for reading and helping!

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Comments (6)

sinfonian
16 years ago
If you've read my blog you know I love my Mel's Mix. I didn't tinker with it when I "built" it (other than mixing half with a bit more compost), but have added coffee grounds to the top six inches. I have an organich fertilizer but I forgot to mix it in before planting so now I don't know what to do with it. Oh, and I'll be augmenting my corn bed with urea when the stalks start to grow to give them plenty of nitrogen.

Otherwise, Mel's Mix drains like a charm, holds moisture incredibly well and is very friable for ease of plant root development. What's not to like? Oh the cost, it's a one-time cost for years of great gardening. Nuff said.

Here is a link that might be useful: New look, check it out...
kristimama
Original Author
16 years ago
Hi Sinfonian,
I like the new look of the blog. I had looked at it before, but now I can easily find your "how to get started" section and I read that.

One question I have for you is about how much water it takes to keep the soil moist. You said it dries out "fast"... our local water board is meeting in a couple weeks to talk about rationing water. If that's the case, I'm in big trouble. LOL
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Yes, Al, we can discuss just about anything on this thread having to do with these containers. I want to learn more so whatever will help me is fair game! Ok, if I understand this, the ideal is a soil that doesn't maintain perched water but still holds enough moisture for plant health. The next best thing would be a soil with a very minimal PWL. I've looked at your recipes for soil mixes and they look good but I suspect the average suburban homeowner (my students) isn't going to the trouble to make up a soil with ingredients that hard to come by. Do you have any suggestions for amending Mel's mix or some commercial potting soil that will work in these beds with solid bottoms? I don't remember seeing pine bark fines in the local stores, but can't say they don't have them since I've never actually looked... on my list of things to do this weekend! Is there something else that would help that's more readily available? Farkee, I've been gardening since I was knee high to my dad when he had a small truck farm (mumble, mumble) years ago, mostly in large row-type gardens. I knew about intensive gardening but always thought it looked like even more work than I was already doing. Then I found Mel's book and knew I had the answer for my current garden. I've gone from a 3000 square foot garden to two SF beds of about 40 sf each. I'm planning to build another bed this summer, soon enough to plant a few things for a fall garden I hope. I'll never be able to match the production of the big garden but then again I don't have a big family at home anymore to eat all of it and I don't have the energy for it either. Now I try to persuade everybody that the principle behind SF gardening is the way to go, especially for suburbanites who have flower beds that can easily be converted or all that lawn that's just pretty but unproductive. It seems to have become something of a mission in life! LOL Sandy
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When I switched from gardening in the earth to raised beds there were 2 primary reasons for it. First, I live in the north where spring soil is cold and usually very wet (clay). It made spring planting difficult. Second, the weeds. OMG the weeds. Most of my garden time was spent pulling or hoeing weeds which I didn't enjoy. So, going from an earth garden to raised beds I looked for ways to not lose out on the number of plants I could grow or the harvest I could get. I was very much influenced by Square Foot Gardening and built my raised beds using Mel's mix. My beds are open to the earth though and the clay soil under them is very fertilize. I was never particularly impressed with plant growth purely from the compost. It was fine except there was never enough nitrogen to optimally meet the plant needs. I am sure it can be done, but one would have to be very choosy about the compost to ensure it can provide adequate N. I then began adding soybean meal as an N source. This has worked just fine. It's also what I use as a lawn fertilizer. So, can Mel's mix work without additional fertilizer? Yes, but it needs to be top notch, nutrient containing compost, particularly for N. How do the raised bed plants perform compared to in ground plants? Very favorably. Spring plants always do better than the in ground did simply because I can plant them at the proper time and not have to deal with a nearly frozen, sopping wet clay muck mess. Warm season plants also thrive, probably due to the extra warmth the bed provides and the better drainage. The relative lack of competition from weeds is also an advantage. Now, would I recommend Mel's mix to others? Yes, but I think raised bed gardening in general is advantageous, particularly for those of us in wet or cold climates and those who aren't in love with weeding ;) I have considered adding some soil to the mix as it shrinks in volume over each season quite a lot and I wouldn't mind a little more water retention in the hot/dry summer. In other words I think it's a good mix, at least for my climate, but I don't consider it the be all end all.
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This may not be the best place to post it, but I'd rather not start a new thread. I'm getting "dirt" mid February to plant soon thereafter. If I'd read this post last year I'd have done it different, but there you go. I re-read the book on Mel's Mix and have some questions about it. It complains about composts being from one waste source so buy 5 different bags to get 5 cubic feet of compost. Well I need on the order of 4 cubic yards of compost to fill my beds. Not very economical to say the least. That's not the issue because I've budgeted for dirt. The issue is I believe I've found an exceptional alternative. In the Seattle area, we've got a composting company called Cedar Grove. Cedar Grove compost is sold in bulk or bags and contains no less than 5 sources, all Pacific NW natural bushes, trees, grass, leaves and produce waste. I can't imagine mixing in 10 bags of five different commercial composters when I can get 5 different sources by the cubic yard. I plan on mixing in essentially equal amounts of peet and vermiculite, but is that enough? I find manure somewhat distasteful, somewhat like cleaning the cat box, but is it necessary? Per the Cedar Grove website, their compost has the following minimum values: Guaranteed Minimum Analysis: Compost, 1.10-0.40-1.10 Total Nitrogen (N)..............................1.10% 1.10% Water Insoluble Organic Nitrogen* Available Phosphate (P2O5).................0.40% Soluble Potash (K20).........................1.10% Calcium (Ca).....................................0.58% I don't know much about that stuff, and hope never to need to. If I should start a new thread (sorry if I'm hijacking ccaggaio's thread), I can do that as well. I appreciate the thoughts. I know my family will say I'm good with standard compost without vermiculite, so I'm used to "helpful" suggestions. Thanks, Sinfonian Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden in progress...
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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.
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timewind
16 years ago
Over all my plants did very well in the first year with new Mel's mix. Due to problems with my carrots and radishes I am adding some phosphorus this year (in the form of bone meal) and I am going to test my soil pH to see if it is or has become (due to additions of pine needles by a nearby tree) too acidic, which I gather could hinder nutrient uptake by the plants.
carsonsig
16 years ago
I added some veggie fertilizer...

I couldn't find very diverse compost around here, so I wanted to be sure the plants had what they need! I wasn't going to do all that work, and fail due to crappy compost!
darthtrader
16 years ago
kristimama, the mix will not dry out "fast" if you mulch well. Once you put your mix in your beds, deeply water. Top the finished beds with three layers of newspaper, wet with the hose and then top that generously with a few bucks worth of straw (not hay) from the local feed store. (If you don't want to buy a whole bale, buy a few bags of straw "flakes.") Water this down with the hose again. Don't forget the corners! Make sure that the newspaper print uses soy ink! Or simply skip the newspaper altogether, but you may see a stray wheat seedlings sprout up here and there. Mel's mix is so fluffy that I don't really mind picking those out once a week.

At 12" in depth, my Mel's mix stays comfortably moist for a week here in the hot and dry SoCal climate. Water deeply in the evening. If you love seeing earthworms as much as I do, you'll be delightfully surprised with the number of worms that move into your beds. I can't dig an inch down into the mix without seeing a bunch of lively red wigglers!

I do add Dr. Earth's organic vegetable fertilizer mix on the surface of my beds at the start of the season to give my seedlings a good boost. It also provides your mix with all the lovely beneficial microbes. Kellogg Garden Products also makes a nice organic fertilizer that I've topped my mix with in the past. Their organic fertilizer also contains beneficial microbes and a lovely mix of animal poops.

When I initially made my mix, I did 2/4 composts(composted steer manure, bagged compost, worm castings, 1/4 peat, 1/4 Turface MVP fired clay chips. I couldn't find vermiculite in bulk the first year. This mix did dry easily and was too compact for my liking. Not very many earthworms made a home in my beds in the first year. This February I found 3.5cu ft bags of coarse vermiculite at Home Depot for $20 each. I bought one for every two beds. I mixed this and more composted matter and manure into my beds. Then I sprinkled the mentioned Dr. Earth fertilizer on top of that and lightly forked that into the top two inches. Lastly, I topped the beds a nice thick layer of straw. The result is spectacular.

In conclusion, don't cheap out on the vermiculite and do mulch! I know the vermiculite's expensive, but it's worth the initial cost. If you're going to cheap out, buy more composted manure than the pre-mixed bagged compost. The trick is to take care of and nourish your "soil mix;" that's where the magic happens, and that will in turn nourish your plants.
timewind
16 years ago
Well, I tested my pH, and was surprised to find my soil was slightly basic. I guess I can't complain!

Do you add fertilizer or otherwise tinker with Mel's Mix

Comments (6)

sinfonian

kristimama
Original Author

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Do you add fertilizer or otherwise tinker with Mel's Mix

Comments (6)

sinfonian

kristimamaOriginal Author

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timewind

carsonsig

darthtrader

timewind

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kristimama
Original Author