Thanks for your nice comments - My husband just finished making my 1/8" screed/sieve and now I finally have the ability to sift just about any size material-very exciting! Good point edweather. This is my first time trying the 5-1-1 mix and I have many different plants I need to accommodate in it - Tomatoes, Peppers, Lavender, Blueberries, Fig tree, etc. I want to eventually try out the gritty mix for the fig tree and blueberries, but right now I am going to start them out in the 5-1-1 mix as I have all the necessary ingredients at hand. Any thoughts on the differences between the 5-1-1 mixtures needed for the plants listed above? I have spent a lot of time reading past posts about the 5-1-1 mix and I vaguely remember Al(tapla) saying that the fine dust should not make up more than 1/6 of the total mix. I don't remember if that was in reference to a particular plant or if that is a general rule. One more question - After I make up a batch of the 5-1-1 mix can I use it right away or do I need to let it sit a while because of the lime?

I will tell you my experience with 5-1-1 mix, which I changed for a 6-1 mix (I will explain it). Until one year now, I used a commercial mix of compost and peat for citrus containers, with very good results in the short term (several months), but with further problems due to organic matter decomposition with lake of air and and the resulting problems. Then, I decided to move to 5-1-1 mix, but it is difficult to find pine bark of 3/8" size. Repti bark and Orchid mixes are very expensive. I buy 1 inch size bark mulch in 6 gallon bags at a very good price. Later, using a pruning woods chopper, I triturate the bark mulches and screen out pieces bigger than 3/8" size. What I get is a family of bark particles from fines to 3/8" size. I tested by myself several mixes in a container of 25 Oz volume and 6 inch high and I got the following results: 5-1-1 mix (chopped and 3/8" screened bark+perlite+peat): Total pore volume: 300 ml Aeration pore volume: 130 ml Total porosity: 40 % Aeration porosity: 17.3 % Water-holding porosity: 22.7 % 6-1 mix (chopped and 3/8" screened bark+perlite): Total pore volume: 400 ml Aeration pore volume: 250 ml Total porosity: 53.3 % Aeration porosity: 33.3 % Water-holding porosity: 20 % As you can see, I got better results, by far, from 6-1 mix, without peat. I decided to try without peat, following a Josh (Greenman28) advice in an old post. He said that sometimes he didn't use peat in 5-1-1 mix with good results. Peat decomposes faster than bark, and you know that decomposed particles penalises aeration. Well, after one year of use of 6-1 mix, I bare rooted the past week a healthy Tango mandarin grafted on Poncirus trifoliata in a 12 gal container, for planting in ground, and I can tell you that the mix was in a very similar condition to the original, and I don't remember so well developed and healthy roots in a container citrus plant. I am very satisfied with this mix. Just one additional care with it, you have to monitor more closely the fertilization, because minerals leach out easier than in a traditional peat mix. In any case, it remains for an acceptable time. And, coming back to your question, I don't remove fines. If you removed fines, in my opinion, it would be imperative to use peat.

I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I found stuff that was specifically sold as "pine bark fines" from a landscape supply co. It just looks different from what I've seen other people post so I'm not sure if it's right. I'm pretty sure there's an orchid club around here so I'll try that. Thank you so much for the suggestions! I definitely saw a couple people comment that they had used a thrift store food processor for bark. I think they said they didn't use the kitchen one because of contamination or something. There was also someone who suggested repeatedly driving over a bag of the larger pine bark nuggets to break the pieces up. I'll probably try this if the one I have isn't good. I tried to take some better mix of the stuff I found. These are 2 different handfuls with a quarter for size reference. I'm picking out the sapwood slowly :) Does it look any more suitable for the 5-1-1 mix now?

Okay, thanks guys. I figured I wasn’t able to use it but wanted to make sure I wasn’t being overly cautious. Thanks again!