Where can I find pine bark fines for 5:1:1 mix?
Vladimir (Zone 5b Massachusetts)
5 years ago
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My 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 MorePine mulch/fines available on Amazon for 5-1-1 mix?
Comments (13)HD and Lowes have a few things worth buying and if your local HD has Dr Earth that is a big step up from what I've seen in mine around here at the east end of LA county and just beyond. It could be worse, I can't imagine anyone being desperate enough to try to build something out of the garbage they call lumber or hardware! It is hit or miss but they usually eventually replace anything decent with cheaper junk while driving the regular suppliers out of business. I now have to pass a half dozen HD/Lowes to go 8 miles to a real hardware store. GreenAll Micro Bark is about twice the price of that Dr. Earth product but twice as useful for 5-1-1 based upon the Earthgo I've seen. Maybe they've changed it since I've seen it. Most of it was too big for 5-1-1 with a lot of dust also. OF Wolfinbarger, who is near me and 5 miles west of Kellogg Garden, has much better for $40 a yard, which is 27 cubic feet. The major source of Kellogg's bagged products for planting is recycled sewage. I think it is tough for anyone trying to learn how to make a proper 5-1-1 when you can't rely on a specific brand and item number to always be the same. I've seen total consistency over years in the GreenAll Microbark from Armstrong Garden and the same from the Reptile Bark widely available at pet stores and on Amazon. Getting at least one bag of the right product will help someone trying to learn. They should then be very careful to look at each bag they buy somewhere else to make sure it is the right product. Dust can be screened out if you are patient. Sapwood chips can be picked out if you are patient and there isn't too much. If someone has reached the point where they want 5-1-1 for container gardening, they are going to have it tough at the places that cater to the uninformed....See More5:1:1 mix and Pine bark question. Again.
Comments (31)I have bought a pH test kit from Petsmart that is pretty good. It is a solution that you add 3 drops of it to prepare soil sample solution in the test tube ( in liquid form ). It comes with pH color chart that you compare your sample next to it. This kit is sold/used to check fish tank pH . Last year I did some of my own tests also had done by professional lab. They were virtually the same. the kit cost like 7 bucks and you can make 250 tests with it. With the soil pH you don't need to be dead accurate. Even a half a point deviation on the pH scale should be good enough for gardening purpose. Sey...See Morepine bark fines in als 5-1-1 recipe
Comments (25)To the OP: Apologies for diverting the topic but please do pipe in if are still in doubt. Westes: "I think when you talk about finer particles creating more space between particles, that is just a side effect of more surface area. Larger particles with less total surface area leave less space between those larger particles. This is just looking at the same issue from two different perspectives." It is the other way around. Capillary force depends on the space between surfaces. Consider a wick made of fine strands of fibers. If you loosely pack it then the spaces between strands are large and it will not wick as well. But if you tightly wind the same strands the spaces between strands decreases and it will wick up water much better. The surface area has not changed but the capillary force increases considerably. This is the principle that a mop uses to draw up the water from the floor. Another way to look at PWT is to think of a jigsaw puzzle vertically. The pieces themselves are big compared to the spaces in between them. Let us assume the pieces cannot absorb water. Let us say they are made of plastic and when they are put together there is still a tiny strand of space between them and is the same throughout. If the space is small enough water will wick up from the bottom through those spaces to quite a height. But the height achieved by wicking water is determined by the space between the pieces and not the size of the pieces themselves. And for this theoretical jigsaw puzzle, the height the water will reach be fairly fixed - no more no less. "If I take Turface fines and water them, I get a water-saturated mess that is very slow to dry. Are you saying that this means the perched water table actually goes the entire length of the container to the top of the soil? Let me try to grasp the physics of just that trivial case before we start to talk about 511 again." If you take your turface medium it will have a fixed PWT. Let us say that is 5 inches or 10 inches or whatever the medium supports. Below that height it will be 100% saturated. Above that height it will not be 100% saturated. And as you go higher it will be less so. When I say saturated, it means both the particles and the air spaces are filled with water. Above PWT the particles may be saturated but not the spaces in between. In fact, the spaces in between will be a mixture of air and water vapor making it very humid. The relative humidity in the spaces may be 100% but it is very different from saying that space is 100% water. Slow to dry does not mean there is a PWT. All it means is that turface is saturated with water. Does not mean that the spaces between them is. And turface is pretty reluctant to give up its water. The surface bond strength between water and the clay in turface is pretty strong. It takes a lot of energy to break that bond and it becomes increasingly (exponentially) harder as the turface becomes drier. Cactus like plants have an immense ability to exert phenomenal force to extract water. They have evolved to do that. Water loving plants lack that ability and need more freely available water not tightly bound to the medium. Without any roots to suck that water any medium will feel damp/wet for a long time. Temperature plays a role here too. Lower the temperature harder it is for the roots to extract water from a medium....See MoreVladimir (Zone 5b Massachusetts)
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