Absolute beginner - Need help with pine bark fines for 5-1-1 mix
I'm trying to start a small kitchen herb garden. I have basil, cilantro, chives and green onion seedlings grown from seed. They're outside during the day now when it's warm but I will have them under bright grow lights indoors over winter. They're still very small (just about a week old) and I want to move them to 3 gallon planters in a few weeks. I've been reading through the forums but this is my first time posting.
I'd like to try to pot them in Al's 5-1-1 mix when they're ready. I've been looking for pine bark fines near me and I found a landscape supply company selling some for about $1/5 gallons. I'm just not sure if these are right. There's definitely some sapwood mixed in there and I'm trying to pick out as much as I can. It also looks shredded and not chipped. If anyone could help me with this, I would really appreciate it.
Comments (9)
Rufus
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoRelated Discussions
Is this pine bark fine mixture OK for the 5-1-1 mix?
Comments (4)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?...See More5-1-1 Hosta Mix Pine Bark
Comments (2)When you use particles that large, mixed with small particles, the medium pretty much retains the properties of the fine particulates. Drainage (flow-through rates) and the height of the PWT will remain almost the same as they were if you were using only the finer ingredients, though o/a water retention will be reduced. All the bark does, in addition to reducing o/a water retention, is reduce the amount of space in the medium that is available for root colonization, which would have to be logged as a negative in the list of cause/effect relationships. Al...See MoreMy solution to pine bark fines for Al's (Tapla) 5-1-1 mix
Comments (18)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....See MoreWhere can I find pine bark fines for 5:1:1 mix?
Comments (29)The main issue I see with raw pine bark is that it is pretty hydrophobic because of the high lignin content. Aged pine bark has much less of this problem since some of that lignin would have decomposed. Last year I filled a 55 gallon drum with the raw bark with a handful of high nitrogen fertilizer and left it outside. I have not used it yet but looks nicely aged - that is uniformly black instead of brown. Nitrogen binding (and decomposition) is a very slow process and requires proper microbes to be present. In containers with chemical fertilizer it is less of an issue. The fertilizer is immediately available to plants and is mostly consumed in a short period. Aged bark not only holds water better but also releases the fertilizer better. Peat does the same even better than bark but is much too fine to be used as the main ingredient....See More
elevensixty
7 years agoRufus
7 years agoI 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?
elevensixty
7 years agoRufus
7 years ago
elevensixty