sticks and stones

[slugworth]

I bought some "back to the roots" organic seed starting mix in walmart today.
Looks like potting soil and has tiny sticks that will have to be removed.
Seedlings don't like obstacles when they are pushing their way out.

[pepperhead212]

I see a lot of sticks in things like that, so much so that I made some "sifters" - some different sized trays, with holes drilled in them, to sift the sticks out, and also wash the smaller stuff out of my hydroponics pellets. Some sticks get through, but most are removed, fairly quickly.

[rxkeith]

it did say STARTING mix right?

sticks eventually break down to become humus.
stones take a bit longer.



keith

[pepperhead212]

Sticks might break down eventually, but that shouldn't give those companies an excuse to put a large amount of sticks in so called "organic" mixes. Some aren't bad, while occasionally I had some I have actually returned, showing them the excessive amount of sticks I found. Never really found any noticeable stones, fortunately.

[slugworth]

for small sifting jobs I use a food strainer from the dollar store.
I wanted to avoid the starter mixes where the seeds float away.

[Paulf]

Somebody, maybe some one here uses a seed starting tray with the cross-hatch bottom as a sifter to remove the big stuff. Great idea. I dug one out but the bag of soilless mix I opened had already been sifted. About the first time ever. Anyway I am now ready if the second bag needs help.

[Tormahto]

A compressed cube of Pro-Mix can have some of those sticks. I fine screen only a small amount of it.

I almost fill a seedling container with the regular seedling mix, place the seeds on top, and add about a 1/16 inch of the screened mix over the seeds. No problems.

[slugworth]

I love it when I get those mushrooms growing out of it that you can't eat unless you want to see God on a continuous basis.

[JRinPA]

I use a 10x20 tray (cross hatch bottom soil block tray) at times to sift but I also have a big sifter with 1/2" hw cloth and a small sifter with 1/4" hw cloth. I still haven't made a stackable set with a motorized tapper. One of dozens of things that I "still haven't made".

The last two years the peat moss has been getting bad with sticks, and not just tiny ones. I should be returning them on principle. I don't think I have seen many rocks in the peat moss. I do get rocks in township compost and some few in my vermicompost, if I scrape the bottom dirt.

I may well buy some compressed pro mix this year - I am expecting it to be much better than the peat I've been getting. I sure hope it will be sifted already.

The worse rocks I have ever seen...last year my brother got a load of horse manure. I took 2 buckets of it. It had so many rocks (shale I guess) that I ran it through a drum tumbler I made with a couple cart wheels and 1/2" hw cloth. From that 10 gallons, I recall it was 3 gallons of rocks. 30% rocks in year old horse manure...that's a pretty poor job of turning and loading manure. But hey, it was free, only $20 worth of labor to sift out the rocks, so it only cost $3 per gallon, plus gas, for that "free" stuff. On CL I'm seeing two places with horse manure, loaded for free, but I'm leery of it now, moreso each year, with all the talk of herbicides. Neither are real close, either.

[slugworth]

I have a hardware cloth sifter that was originally for ashes with coal leftovers.