I had to put the reptibark through a blender when I made mine. I've never used lava rock because I haven't been able to locate it yet but I've seen on here that others have used a sledge hammer (or regular hammer) that's a WHOLE LOTTA SMASHING LOL hope this helps you. Also I've never put soil in my gritty mix. I would personally think that would defeat the whole purpose of the gritty mix. When you use a true gritty mix you have to fertilize just about every watering

"Its hammer time!!"

I'll see what I can do about the lava rock though, I don't own a sledge hammer and I don't think i can operate one lol, I have some long days of regular hammering ahead of me it seems x_x

As for blending the reptibark, is that safe? I own a very cheap magic bullet product, not sure if blending power is up for the task

and my logic behind the adding the soil was that the bark wasn't composted so it might help to provide enough nutrition initially, but perhaps blending will help to 'break it down' a bit :/

Need a pro here!

Why would you use "composted" bark in the gritty mix? Perhaps you've confused this mix with the 5-1-1.

The addition of the cacti soil definitely defeats the purpose of the gritty mix, which is excellent drainage and aeration. I'm not saying that will kill your plants, just pointing out that what you've made is a gritty mix but not The Gritty Mix.

The pieces of lava rock are much too large, if the bark pieces are 1/4 inch or less.

Josh

josh, I think you might be right about getting it mixed up x_x
well in any case it was like a small 'sample' batch, used it on an aloe and a cactus, i'll see how it holds up!

Also, is it possible to go to a rock yard and have them crush the lavarock for me? Took me a good one minute to break one piece in half only, there's got to be at least a thousand pieces in the bag.

bark pieces range from 1/4-1/2 inch, but I will try blending it for a new sample batch tomorrow as lilbit suggested.

if lavarock doesn't work out what are a couple substitutes I could use? (other than pumice and perlite-->it's too light) I live in canada and I'm not sure we carry turface up here, or if it's under a different name. haven't had any luck finding it in hardware stores.

Just wanted to say you can definitely get turface in Canada, I've found it on the east coast and other members have found it on the west coast. Hardware stores won't carry it , though. Try higher end nurseries or places that deal with ball field supplies. You might also find Schulz Aquatic Soil at nurseries, which is the same product, just rebranded. It also comes in much smaller bags.

Good luck!

This post was edited by breton2 on Mon, Sep 29, 14 at 6:39

Imcf, Hi! I also use lava rock in my gritty mix and I had a hard time getting it down to the right size at first cause I was using a regular hammer. I am a pretty small person (weak as well haha) and I took someone's advice and bought a sledgehammer and it made such a difference! Get a smaller one, not a huge one that you are used to seeing. Mine is a 4lb sledgehammer. I also get a few pieces here and there that are solid and impossible to break, I just set those aside and I'll find a purpose for those later. But this is what your mix should look similar to. My mix consists of lava rock, turface, chicken grit, and a little bit of pumice. I hope that helps you! Good luck. - Sam. :)

This post was edited by Sbgibbons on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 13:08

wow ok thanks for all the help :) I haven't had much luck looking for 'turface' but i've heard them being under different names like schultz soil conditioner as well, will definitely look again!
BTW, what exactly is turface? I know it retains water and helps with aeration but is it a rock?clay? Does it offer any nutritional value?

I might just end up using the lavarock ornamentally, though i have a huge bag to go through. Living in an apartment I don't have a yard i can hammer away in without disrupting my neighbors :(

there are some farmlands maybe half an hour from where I live, hopefully i can find some porous grit there :x

sbgibbons your mix looks impressive! just out of curiousity, is it necessary to have an 'organic component' like fir bark? since yours doesn't have any (I may be poorly informed and lavarock/turface will be sufficent for that).

anyways, seems like this newbie has much to learn! thanks everyone for the help :)

also, I do already have pea gravel, reptibark, perlite, cacti soil, and well.. chunks of lava rock on hand; will this be sufficient for a recipe until i can get my hands on something better? or should I hold off until i can get some better ingredients?

follow up on blending the reptibark: it sounds very scary like it might blow up at any second, and didn't blend that well, mainly just created a lot of sawdust in the bottom of the blender and din't really divide the larger pieces. although this could be an issue with my magic bullet and how much (or how little) i put in. would mincing these like garlic be better? :p

Can also be done by hand by the pot full of by the bag soak the repti bark for a day or two for easier sizing Will be surprized as to how long the bark holds it's moisture after wet .

Sift the bag of cactus soil you'll see what your looking for

Found couple of distributors in BC - don't know where you are but judging from your zone...

Premier Pacific Seeds
Surrey
(604) 881-1323

Evergro Canada
Multiple Locations Serving British Columbia
(800) 663-2552

Try this link:
http://www.turface.com/turface-products/infield-conditioners

you can find info on what it is;
& you want Turface MVP. Still should sift it to correct size (I throw small particles on garden beds...)
50lb bag should be under $20.

Rina

omg thanks rina :o that helps alot!
I just googled evergro canada and their search results dont seem very specific, nor can i find their website, but premier pacific is somewhat close to my area :') thanks girl!!

Imcf, Hi! I also use lava rock in my gritty mix and I had a hard time getting it down to the right size at first cause I was using a regular hammer. I am a pretty small person (weak as well haha) and I took someone's advice and bought a sledgehammer and it made such a difference! Get a smaller one, not a huge one that you are used to seeing. Mine is a 4lb sledgehammer. I also get a few pieces here and there that are solid and impossible to break, I just set those aside and I'll find a purpose for those later. But this is what your mix should look similar to. My mix consists of lava rock, turface, chicken grit, and a little bit of pumice. I hope that helps you! Good luck. - Sam. :)

{{!gwi}}

I put my blender on high for about ten seconds hen I take the blender off give turn it upside Down and back a couple times then put it on for another seven seconds. You will have dust but most of the bark should be at a usable size. The too big chunks I then break up by hand but there's usually not too many pieces like that after blended. I got a cheap blender from walmart to use specifically for that for 14.00 I did blow up my first one but it was REAL old. Hope this helps ya! :)

Hmm I blended in 2-3 second intervals in genuine fear that it might explode or catch fire, but I'll give it a shot lol

Thanks again everyone for the help I'll keep updating :)

So once I get my hands on the turface, what should the mix be? reptibark, turface and pea gravel? Will I need to add a solid fertilizer like bonemeal? I do add some of the Schultz cacti fertilizer every time I water but it probably doesn't have all the necessary nutrients for optimal growth

If you put gritty mix in the search bar you'll see Al's Gritty mix recipes. I stuck to his recipe but you can mix n match so to speak. I stuck to his until I get used to how the mix works. You'll see some grow in straight pumice. Or they'll use lava rock, grit, and bark. Or lava rock and just grit. And so on. I'm sure others will chime in on this too. But Foulage Pro has been recommended by quite a few on here, and at first all I had was MG fertilizer so I has to add gypsum to my mix and then Epsom salt to the fertilizer because it was lacking all the micronutrients. But Foilage pro has all what your plants need. It sounds like maybe you might want to look through everything again, I personally clipped all the info so I could refer back to it. I can't tell you how many times I have reread it or had to refer back to it. All the information is SOOO ENLIGHTENING!! And invaluable! Hope this helps! :)

Yes, every time I think I'm ready to make a new mix some new information pops up haha, should I still use liquid fertilizer in my waterings if I use solid ones?

Everyone has been of great help! Thankyou so so much!

Anyways, I'm going out this weekend to pick up some turface hopefully, and I can start mixing away. Please let me know what your recipes and tips are! Sharing is caring hahaha

I use 1 part reptibark 1 part turface and 1 part chicken grit. ALL are sifted and washed. The grit and turface I grabbed a dollar store sifter/strainer with a handle and dump some in then sift it then rinse. The strainer has VERY SMALL holes. I add the gypsum (though on new batches I don't use gypsum anymore because I use Foilage pro. I would think using granular fertilizer WITH liquid would be WAY too much. Plus you wouldn't be able to control how much you were really giving your plants. From what I remember reading the granular fertilizers (or NONLIQUID) need something to break them down so the plant can actually use them. With the liquid, it's readily available.

http://www.amazon.com/Dyna-Gro-DYFOL008-Foliage-Pro-11/dp/B003SUT6VS

is this the correct product?

alright! I got my hands on some turface so this is my grit mix attempt 2.

reptibark, pea gravel, turface- one part of each.

Honestly, i got lazy halfway and didn't thoroughly sift through the turface (there should be no 'dust' though). Also didn't blend most of the repti bark because my blender began to emit some smokey smells... :x
Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

Anyways, since i seem to have particles ranging from 1/8-1/2 inch will this be okay? (turface averages at 1/8 inch, pea gravel at 1/4 and reptibark at 1/2)

The bark is too large. Really need to get it down to 1/4 inch for the Fir bark.

Josh

So strange. I came back to check on this thread and I noticed that the second message is posted was just a repost of my first message! I don't know how that happened! That's so odd. And now I don't remember what I said. :/ Oh well. I'll just pick up from here. I agree with Josh, the bark is still too large. I did a search and I read that soaking the bark for at least 24 hours makes it easier to break up. So maybe you could give that a try?

Also about living in an apartment and the noise that comes along with breaking up lava rock, you can always take a bowl, the bag of rocks, and your hammer to a sidewalk by your complex or even to a park. It's really not that loud to break them up because they are so porous, they crush really easily when using a sledgehammer. So you could also give that another shot if you can't get the bark to break down. :)

Hmm alright, i will try soaking the bark then and try again with the blender. I was thinking that could have been the issue since there was no liquid to 'cool off' the blending process, the insides became quite heated and smokey.

As for the lava rock, I will save that for another day when i can get my hands on a small sledgehammer!

The gritty mix uses bark as a filler and as a reservoir for moisture and nutrients. I never use it at more than 1/3 of the op/a volume of the medium, which ensures that as the bark breaks down the soil won't collapse. Collapse in this sense means the bark breaking down into pieces small enough to fill the macro (air) pores between the mineral fraction of the soil. The Turface or calcined DE serves the same purpose. The grit is used to adjust water retention od the soil, which would be very difficult to do if using only bark and Turface, ant you would need to use so much bark in a 2 part bark mix that soil collapse would be a distinct possibility if you don't repot yearly.

In a perfect world, the mineral fraction would be uniformly about 1/8" in size. The reason is, the perched water table disappears as uniform particle size becomes >1/10". The ideal bark size would be 3/16-1/4". The slightly larger than ideal size allows for some breakdown in the bark particles w/o having to deal with perched water.

All in all, there is a lot of thought that went into determining what optimum sizes are and what ingredients work best. The concept embodied in the soil is actually more valuable to growers than the recipe. Soils that primarily hold water inside of soil particles, and some water at the interface where particles contact and on the surface of the soil's particles, offer much greater opportunity to reach their potential. Oxygen-robbing water held in the spaces between soil particles are the bane of root health and function.

Growers who find the basic 1:1:1 ratio of screened bark: screened Turface: grit doesn't hold enough water, need only to change the ratio of the ingredients to favor the volume of Turface while reducing the amount of grit to increase water retention, or simply adding additional Turface would accomplish the same goal. @ examples for more water retention are:

3 screened bark
4 screened Turface
2 #2 cherrystone or grower size grit

1 screened bark
2 screened Turface
1 #2 cherrystone or grower size grit

Generally speaking, the more you NEED to water, the better your plants like it, as long as you water often enough that drought stress isn't a factor.

Al

Thanks Al, so having slightly larger bark particles (around 1/4inch- 1/2 inch) shouldn't affect it too much right?

Remember that 1/4" is already on the high side, 3/8" really stretching things, and 1/2" really is too large - reason being it will be impossible to keep the soil from stratifying with that much size disparity in particle size.

Al

hmm ok, I guess my mix needs a bit more work then!

Thanks a lot for your expert advice :)

Hi I'm new to gritty mix I just come by a grit that is 1/8" in size will this material work in a gritty mix it is real close to the same size as the turface mvp if so what size pine bark would work best the grit is all the same size nothing smaller or larger it is a silica sand used in making glass and fracking oil wells

Should be perfect.

Screen the Turface MVP and use what doesn't pass through an insect screen. Ideally the bark would be in the 1/8-1/4" size range.

If you can manage the bark, you have the makings of a soil that should perform extremely well.

Al

Think you Al this is great I have a good supply of this material and it has already been screened a very clean