I'll look into those pH up products. I was hesitant to use baking soda to up the pH due to the sodium content. Your chart is very informative. Although, that makes me wonder about using wood ashes. I do have a lot of wood ashes from using a wood stove in winter. I've made lye water from wood ashes ...

I have a spring fed pond in my back yard and I tested the water runoff from the pond. The pH appears to be a little below 4.0. Is this too acidic? Should I buffer it to raise the pH a bit? This weekend I'll test the water directly coming out of the spring. Spring fed pond: you will not be able to c...

So, I just recieved the rolls of pH test paper from Fisher Scientific. I got the 3.0 to 8.0 and the 1.0 to 14.0 test paper. The brand name is Hydrion. I tested the paper using 4.5 and 10.1 buffer solutions. Obviously, I couldn't test the 3.0 to 8.0 with the 10.1 buffer solution; however, I'm very c...

Of course if I find one that has no fertilizer and has good components I'll go with that, but so far I can't find anything unfortunately. Given the lack of high-quality commercial potting soils these day, digging up soil from one's garden starts looking attractive. Do you live in a place with a gar...

Of course if I find one that has no fertilizer and has good components I'll go with that, but so far I can't find anything unfortunately. Given the lack of high-quality commercial potting soils these day, digging up soil from one's garden starts looking attractive. Do you live in a place with a gar...

SpriteFish wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 7:35 amI did find this from a new zealand brand, it looks like it could work and doesn't have added fertilizers. Would you suggest adding coarse sand to it? https://www.bioleaf.co.nz/product-page/ ... otting-mix

I'll defer to Mike on that. What say you, Mike?

I had a look at pure loam being sold near me, and it seems it only comes in massive 25l bags, which is WAYYY more than I can use. Im thinking at the moment potting mixes may be the most versatile due to already containing bark, compost and coarse sand. All I need to do is add pumice to it, and if i...

What are the pros and cons of loam (commercial potting soil), bark, and compost? I might aswell ask so I can compare them! I was just thinking that soil might be more versatile than bark, as I can add it to any mix and adjust the pumice:soil ratio depending on the plant species. Also I was wonderin...

I downloaded those pages as jpegs, so I have them archived for future use. What you said is what I was hoping for -- I'll readjust my fertilizer recipe for a 1:1 ratio. Urea will be required to make it happen, which gives me a couple of options I detailed in the PM I sent you: Option #1. Add a touc...

Hi Steve Regarding the ammonium to nitrate ratios, rather than going into a long reply, I will post a couple of pages from my text book regarding ammonium toxicity. Hopefully you can read them. I'm happy to discuss more after that but I would say that there is little chance of ammonium toxicity in ...

I'll have to correct myself on something I said: Coarse organic materials (like tree bark and sphagnum peat) eventually break down and turn into slush, inviting pathogens to come in and have fun at your and your plants' expense. Here's the correction: Organic material does NOT cause disease of any k...

We shouldn't make any assumptions about what our members do or don't know, so for those of you who don't know about CEC, we'll dig into it (pun intended)... From Ohio State University Extension (https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/anr-81): "Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is a fundamental soil pr...

I'm thinking that I'm going to use a fertilizer with a nitrate/ammonium ratio of 2:1 because i think thats what I saw recomended for potted cacti in one of the various posts about fertilizer. That was me, and it may be specific to pure soilless mineral mixes like my 60% pumice/40% granite gravel mi...

New Zealand is where Orchiata bark comes from. They have a seedling grade (called ''Precision'') which is 3-6 mm. You can use that... Only problem with any sort of tree bark is that it becomes hydrophobic after repeated wet-dry cycles. A wetting agent takes care of the problem, and I've read that y...

I see that yours is between 1mm-5mm but are there any drawbacks to using slightly larger sizes (e.g. 5mm - 10mm grains)? 5 mm-10 mm is quite a bit larger -- too open for a soilless mix. I grow 4 of my cacti in a 50% pumice/50% soil mix, so I'd recommend pumice with 3 mm-5 mm grains. It also depends...