Real Gardens Grow Natives by Eileen M. Stark

Author:Eileen M. Stark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594858673
Publisher: The Mountaineers Books

making potting medium

I started making my own potting soil mixtures after I learned about the environmental destruction associated with peat extraction. The mining of ancient, nonrenewable peat bogs is a highly pernicious operation that destroys habitat for many rare species. In addition, peat bogs are major carbon sinks that hold four times as much carbon as forests do, so when peat is extracted from the bogs, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere.

It also dawned on me that somehow, some way, my parents and grandparents managed to grow plants without modern packaged mixes that contain peat, perlite, and vermiculite (the latter two of which are also mined and nonrenewable) and became popular about thirty years ago. If you want nothing to do with ripping up ancient peat bogs and other destructive mining operations, you can make your own potting medium. Like everything you make from scratch, it’s usually better than packaged items, since you know exactly what’s going into it. I’ve used coir, a by-product of the coconut industry—it holds moisture well so is a good substitute for peat and vermiculite. But it’s more exotic than a palm tree in Puyallup, so it’s not perfect due to the extensive shipping involved. For that reason, I’ve moved on to using a mixture of screened homemade leaf mold, aged compost or worm castings, and coarse sand. All planting medium should be light in texture and retain moisture, but drain well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.