Mike: Fantsastic looking plants! I am so glad you decided to go with the 5.1.1 mix:-). You have come a long way with your plants..Just wonderful. Let us know when would love to use a mix that last's a lot longer than that, and we will get hooked on the gritty mix..:-)Nice lights too. Jodik and Al: I appreciate your vote of confidence in me..That means alot expecially coming from the very ones that helped me every step of the way and especially the one that introduced this concept and mix to me in the first place, Al:0) By the way, Sissy say's "right back at you".. Thank you! Josh: Thank you for your input while I was sick. Your right, and I figure if anyone is really interested in what coir has done for my plants, let alone see pictures, all they would have to do is plug my name into the search field and they can see my journet from begining till recent. Coir stinks, and that's that.;-) Plant48: Thanks for the congrats..It is not the first time my good friends and teacher have commented on my plants. Just do search of my threads. Eggplant and Christine: Thank you much.Your can look like this if you just hang around this forum for a while..Thank you Christine. Posting pictures is easy..If you have photbucket, just upload and we will tell you from there if you do so. Hi mrlike2u, how are you? Sorry I missed you this weekend..Maybe next time.;-) Xuan: Just BEAUTIFUL as always! I love every picture you show us just as much as I love everyone"s!! You pictures always make me feel warm and cozy..lol. Thank you! You are so lucky not to have to face this dreaded cold winter.. I use to like it when I snow boarded..Not anymore.. Have a happy one everybody..I would love to see more pics by the way.. Mike..:-)))

Thanks, Josh. PT - Yes, that mix could be used to repot the plants you mentioned, and offers much greater potential for healthy root systems than soils that retain excessive volumes of water after the pot has stopped draining. If I was repotting any of the 3 plants you mentioned, without question I would put them in the gritty mix, which is equal parts of screened pine or fir bark, screened Turface, and crushed granite in a size range that finds almost all of the particles centered at from just below 1/8" to slightly larger than 1/8". It's extremely durable (structurally stable), which is a very important feature of a quality soil, and guarantees excellent aeration, which is a key element of a healthy root environment, for several years - for much longer than it would be prudent to go between repots. "5:1:1" means 5 parts of an appropriate sized pine bark, and one part each of sphagnum peat and (preferably coarse) perlite. Well aerated soils require a commitment on your part to finding or making the soils, and a little more frequent watering. Once you locate the ingredients and are set up to build the soils, it doesn't take that much effort. The up side includes a much higher probability that plants will be able to grow much closer to their genetic potential on a healthy root system (they can't, on a compromised root system), and a lot less angst/effort to attain the degree of satisfaction and accomplishment most of us are looking for from the growing experience. Much more info can be found at the link I left just below. AL Here is a link that might be useful: Click me & I'll take you to more soil info.

Great post. I tried this method this past weekend. Relative to the lawn mower method of chopping up large pine bark chunks, I found this method to be cleaner (it doesn't shoot pine chunks out the sides like a mower will), a bit slower than the mower, and produced a lot more fine particles. I have a high speed Toro leaf blower/mulcher with a metal impeller. A large percentage of the particles coming out felt like fine compost, and a large number of chunks went through looking unscathed, so I didn't get the mix of particle sizes that I was hoping for. I suppose if I had a 1/8" screen, I could have sifted out some of the fine stuff. As it was, I got about 3 gallons of material, and made a side batch of 5-1-1 to try with some peppers, but I didn't mix it in with the rest of my 5-1-1.

Even if there was a a significant N supply, there wouldn't be a notable breakdown of the bark within such a short period. Might you be noting the bark particles snuggling together more tightly, which reduces the o/a volume by diminishing air space? How long a soil lasts can be over-shadowed by the need to repot or divide plantings, or in some cases just turn them onto the compost pile if the planting is comprised of annuals. As plantings mature, the root system often become a part of the soil structure (with some soils, that never happens because the lower part of the soil is always saturated). I've seen some plantings where at least 90% of the original soil mass has gassed off, leaving only a small fraction of soil in a pot filled with roots. If you are growing a plant that doesn't produce an extensive root system, you can probably go 2 years using the 5:1:1 mix before collapse becomes much of a problem. If you have a planting with a vigorous root system, once you get to the 2 or 3 year point, the roots have either becoming a part of the soil's structure, so even as the 5:1:1 soil breaks down and collapses, the roots themselves should be contributing to aeration and drainage, or roots have formed a mat so dense that water and gases don't penetrate. In either case the remedy is repotting or if appropriate, dividing. Al