Here is my feelings on this. "We" are kings and queens! The "knowledge" we chose/not choose to take in is another "limiting factor" to the success of our plants or their eventual demise. It would be a major "limiting factor" if I did not come to this forum and thank God I did, years ago! :-) We have the power to control the way our plants grow, their destiny, if they succeed, thrive, survive and ect. I couldn't agree more about Al. I thank God for this forum and for the fact that they completely know that it is people like him that keep these forums alive accurate, and our plants healthy. I can't even imagine how much anyone would have to pay a "plant police" to monitor these forums to make sure that false , unreliable, unproven and bad information is dispensed to the eventual decline of our containerized plants. I am truly grateful for this. I have tried for YEARS to no avail, to get anyone knowledgable enough to help my plants thrive, let alone survive. There are many more people in my midst just waiting on the wings of to free their plants, bound by all the false narrow minded information, mis conceptions, commercialism, of thousands of hurtful ferlizers, crappy mixes, constant attack by pests, suffocation by salt and toxins, the bagged soils,greedy money making racketed plant industry and so on. The plant industry has no hold on me or many others at my expense to keep me replacing more and more. I am ever so grateful for anyone to whom takes the time to show me how to make good even better! Here are my two top teachers: Al and Rhizzo, since I take great respect in educated teachers, if one would take the time to read their profiles, in the plant/pest world of science very seriously. Then I follow, appreciate all my friends that support my decision based on science, positive feed back, results, and great ideas that I see work, to make my plants thrive to their best potential.. Marie: I am proud of you for staying focused on the issue at hand, and it is that of what concerns you most on this thread, "feeding your plants in the gritty mix"! All those that grow in this mix will be right here to help you and give you whatever you need to be successful at it. Mike

Hi Longaeva, I will let AL respond as far as using Leca as a subsitute for Turface. But i will say that it is important to keep all of the ingredients when making the Gritty Mix close to the same size as possible. I have seen some Hydroton Balls at the Hydroponic stores and they were to large. Hopefully he will be back to answer your question. I did want to respond and say that if you are having a hard time finding Turface, check for any John Deere Tractor Stores near you and ask if they carry the Turface All Sport or the MVP. They might be able to order it for you. If that doesn't work, then i would search for your local Parks and Rec. Ask the person who is in charge of maintance of the baseball fields and they may be able to point you in the right direction. If there are baseball fields around your area, then someone will know about Turface. They use this to help keep moisture under control on the fields. Just a thought... Hope this helps.. Take care, Laura

Well, yesterday I used the gritty mix for the first time. I put a persian lilac seedling in the gritty mix (3-4-2) and a spider plant in 1-1-1. I am a bit scared as to how often to water since within a couple of hours the wick on the bottom was dry. I watered again and this morning dry again, so I watered again. Is this normal? The summer heat is not here yet and I am a bit worried about watering. Also the spider plant does not look too good, it is wilted quite a bit. I plan on putting some vincas in the 5-1-1 and see how that goes. I totally understand the benefits of the gritty mix but...are the plants going to make it if I water once a day? Also when is good time to start fertilizing the new potted plants and how much. I also plan on moving my african violet and the peace lily in the gritty (1-1-1) but they will be inside. Please someone help and build my confidence up...:( Michael

Chicken grit is not a substitute for turface, but could be used alone - each ingredient can. Particles of any substrates used should be as close in size as possible. So mixing small grit and larger gravel doesn't really help. Try to get more uniform mix, it will work much better. How small is the grit? It may be god size. Here is photo of some of the grit that is smaller size - I use it mostly for rooting and very small plants. There is also little bit of perlite (I am adding quite a bit more) and some turface. As you can see, they are quite close in size: In second photo, particles a little bigger. There is hardly any perlite there yet, but it will be of same size as the grit: You can use just C&S soil and (coarse) perlite mixed 1:1. I don't use that mix but many do and are very happy with its performance. Here is a photo of it borrowed from Crenda - Thank you Crenda!You could use grit+perlite; you could use grit+perlite+pumice; you could use grit+perlite+turface...and many other combinations, of many other ingredients/substrates. I have potted succulents in grit only and also perlite only - they are both just fine, but grit only pot is quite a bit heavier and needs to be watered more often. Perlite only is very light. So those are bit of extreme, but work well anyway. I use mix of equal amounts of grit and coarse perlite and add small amunt of turface (between 10-20%). Turface retains more water than grit & perlite, I would not use it 100% alone. I use lots of perlite - many don't like it and use pumice insted...but I can't find pumice easily and inexpensively, so perlite it is. It works really well. Aquarium gravel could be used too. Much of it is colored, and it is more expensive to buy. I got some (about 2gal) free from freecycle/kijiji but it is colored green and quite large, so I use it sometimes for top-dressing. I also have very small amounts of smaller a. gravel (also recycled so it was free :) that is pink, blue and light green, some grains are occasionally visible in some of my photos. It has been mixed well with other ingredients since I reuse mixes if repotting: depending how it 'looks', I usually rinse it, occasionally adding some bleach, let drip-dry in colander and it gets mixed in again. All of this may look quite complicated - but it really isn't. Do not get totally obsessed about it. It gets easier and simpler - eventually.