I only had 2 problems with 5-1-1. dried out too fast in july-sept. and too light in weight when the Santa Anna winds blow. I've been using pomice (white chunks about the size of smaller sized Perlite). I guess you could call it 5-1-1-1. I also use as low as 3 parts bark instead of 5 for certain plants. I use 5 parts bark but add more perlite and or pomice so it ends up 3-4 parts bark. Basically mix up 5-1-1 but add pomice and or extra perlite. I only grow non bell Peppers,nothing else. I don't like adding organic stuff like manure to my mix as a replacement for peat. It comes back to bite me in the butt when/after it breaks down and washes to the bottom of the pot after 1 season. I end up with sludge in the bottom that stops proper drainage. I never sift anything out for size etc. I just mix the stuff straight from the bag. BUT I use FINE orchid bark that is REALLY uniform(and more expensive than fines). I believe it was already sifted since growing orchid of various kinds has to have some pretty exact soil mixes... I tried orchid mix but it has sand in it. Sand sucks in pots,works it's way to the bottom and forms cement. I find 5-1-1 needs to be fine tuned for different varieties of peppers. It might be a PH issue,water retention thing,heat of the soil mix for roots or whatever. I do know I get monster C.Pubesvens with the 3-4 bark mix with 1-1-1 where other peppers like the 5-1-1-1 better. I never used tarface(whatever-SP?). I don't know what the difference is between water retention with Pomice and tarface. I use my mix for at least 5 seasons with only topping off the pots as needed with new mix as it shrinks.degrades.Bark decomposes or whatever. I DO use more Dolomite Lime than is recomended. It supplies a VERY slow release of Ca. and Mag. as it breaks down. I don't see any PH issues in the years I've been messing with the original 5-1-1 mix. I probably add at least 2X the amount recommended originally in the posts here. BUT I am a big believer in adding Ca. to pepper plants via the soil. I like soaking dolomite lime in vinegar to make calcium acetate (bloom sprays for bud set sold at $$$$ for a cup). I think the Dolomite Lime and Vinegar stuff adds both Mag. and Ca, in even amounts for the plant.The acetate is usable by the plant as a foliar spray and a fert. additive. SO they say... Mag. and Ca. are taken up by the same receptors in plants. PH is supposed to make both usable by the plant,though I think adding both in even amounts lets the plant take what it needs at the time. I think as long as you supply both in small amounts the plant will take either as it needs it. Larger amounts of either I think is supposed to flood the receptor with only 1 of the 2. In general,my plants tell me when they aren't happy. IF I figured things out right I get the results I want. I get greener plants adding the right light than adding ferts, in general. As a side note.I think foliar feeding is mostly a waste,I think the runoff of what you are spraying is what is really doing whatever to your plants. IF your soil is cool and the ferts are cool for the roots,that is all that matters. Leaves were designed to make sun do certain stuff for plants,roots were designed to feed the plant. I find a LOT of people that are into making different witches brews their first season especially in new raised beds or pots saying Teas are the way to go. I think tea runoff in the soil is what is really doing the super growth in general. I don't see anyone who says they are doing a comparison between foliar feeding and not foliar feeding spraying the same stuff as a soil drench or preventing the runoff from foliar feeding from dripping into the soil. That to me is what is needed to prove if either is better than the other. I personally think a small dose of organic ferts. evertime I water is best. Feeds the stuff in the soil AND the roots. I also think all the micro this or that shouldn't be needed as a constant additive if you have good soil in the first place. That stuff should or could be added when you first mix up fresh soil,after that,I THINK,if your soil is cool,it will reproduce itself as long as your soil is cool. Once the micro whatever is established in the soil you should be set up forever IF you keep your soil cool. The micro whatever is a living fungus/whatever and if you keep your soil right you don't need to keep buying or brewing all the stuff forever. I wonder why Molasses is considered a good thing to add to the teas. I brew beer. Molasses turns to the precursor for RUM,Alcohol,then breaks down to vinegar(acetic acid). Only thing I can think of is it kills the bio process as an alcohol BUT as in the acetic acid state it turns some of the teas nutes into plant usable nutes. Without actual lab tests or whatever.Adding a sugar might kill off all the yeast type stuff that is responsible for fermenting a tea and only adding whatever is an acetate of the nutes you made. I'd think alcohol would kill a lot of the stuff they say is being produced by the tea. Seems to boil back down to,IF your soil is cool you don't need to mess with other stuff that might have,at one stage had the bio stuff in it at first but the finished brew isn't what it had in the first place when you actually use the stuff. Might boil down to since an acetate of certain nutes is plant usable in an acetate by the plant,specific nutes are getting used from your teas. A lot that were there-that were killed by the alcohol might be lost. Depends at what stage you used your tea I think and soil chemistry that was present at the time. To me,too many people aren't happy unless they are constantly messing with their plants. Most would have the same growth whether they used whatever tea or not. Since they brewed a tea and got happy plants they feel like everything they did was needed to be done. They overlook that they might have gotten the same results from using fish emulsion and seaweed extract or whatever with a maybe a shot of micro nutes (at first as a kick start). Guess I got side tracked.Just trying to give everyone what I think works with what I use - 5-1-1 mix and my experiences over the years using it. 5-1-1 I think is a great start for a potting soil.BUT it isn't the thing to use for every grow,in general unless you have the time to water 2-3 times a day in places like I live/grow in. I've found out that the 5-1-1 is a lot better the second year. I think the bark soaked up more nutes and the PH is more stable. After a couple seasons I find it works even better. Probably better than early years due to less nitrogen loss due to bark and peat breakdown and a more even nute ballance or ? I forgot to say I add 14-14-14 osmacote to my first year mix and use a 1/10th +/- mix of fish emultion and seaweed extract every time I water. This post was edited by smokemaster_2007 on Fri, Apr 19, 13 at 5:18

Hey sheets, Well, I've never used it in that application, but I would think it would be infinitly better than peat. I would also definitly mix it with something inorganic and not internally porous, like perlite or granite chips, etc. I would probably try to use a slightly larger range of material, not huge - just slightly larger - in an effort to keep the average particle size north of 1/10" For my buck though, I just use the finished mix to start seeds in, works great. You can puck out the larger pieces of bark easy enough. It also makes for a very smooth transition to your 3" pots and beyond. PJ

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.

Harry, because any good quality potting soil is comprised of materials that do not supply any plant nutrients, they must be supplied by the grower via fertilization. This is a standard fact of life for ANY sort of container culture!! Some sort of water soluble fert works best - I prefer a Dyna Gro product because it supplies all the necessary trace elements as well as the primary nutrients but something like fish emulsion or even Miracle Gro can work as well. Wood chips are NOT a good substitute for the bark fines. You want a material that has an overall size of about 1/4" in diameter (up to 1/2" is OK). Bark fines are often sold labeled as "soil conditioner" but you need to check the product label to confirm the ingredients. If you cannot locate that, look for orchid bark of appropriate size or reptile bedding sold at pet supply stores. There is little to no biological activity in a potting mix because it doesn't contain any material that would support populations of soil microorganisms. Adding compost and/or worm castings to a potting mix will contribute beneficial organisms but to the detriment of the proper functioning of the potting medium. These materials will continue to breakdown and will eventually compact, significantly reducing porosity and aeration and leading to poor drainage. You might be able to get by with this sort of combo mix for a single growing season, but you are not doing the best you can for the plants you are growing in the containers. The typical recommendations for the most successful container culture is NOT to reuse potting soil from one season to the next and no additions of either compost or worm castings. If you want to make use of these products with your containers, use them to make a tea with which you can fertilize the plants, although I would not rely on that alone for proper fertilization.