Mel's Mix

I was at work this past Friday morning and noticed that the Yahoo! forecast called for rain on Sunday. I had all kinds of things that I needed to get done in the garden and backyard during the weekend and rain would definitely put the brakes on some of those chores. I decided to burn 1/2 a day of vacation and take the afternoon off.

You may remember that I cut a couple of corners when I initially filled my elevated SFG beds. I didn't follow the Mel's Mix recipe and consequently I ended up with a growing medium that was almost entirely compost. After I left work on Friday I purchased the Vermiculite and peat moss (8 cu. ft. of each). I compared the price of the baled peat moss at the nursery near my home with the bagged Miracle Grow peat moss at Home Depot; the price per cu. ft. was essentially the same. Now, I'm an environmentally mindful person, I try to do at least my share of recycling, and I'm becoming more aware of what I put into my body; but, I don't commune with the trees and the only "herbs" I grow are the ones used to cook with .. so even though the Miracle Grow contains fertilizer, and therefore is not "organic", I went with it anyway.

I got the Vermiculite and peat moss to my home and started constructing the third and last elevated planter. After the bed was completed I had a total of 36 sq. ft. of surface area in which to grow my SFG. Each planter holds 6 cu. ft. of fill, so I needed to mix a total of 18 cu. ft. of Mel's Mix; 1/3 is Vermiculite, 1/3 is peat moss and 1/3 is blended compost. The two beds that I already filled contained 5 cu. ft. of what was essentially just compost. I carefully removed the plants I already had in there and set them aside. I then emptied the compost from the bed onto a large tarp that I put on the ground. I had about 1 cu. ft. of extra Pay Dirt compost left over from awhile back, so I added the extra Pay Dirt to the pile to get it to 6 cu. ft. of compost. I then added 6 cu. ft of the Miracle Grow peat moss and 6 cu. ft. of Vermiculite. I enlisted help from my daughter to pull the corners of the tarp towards each other a few times to thoroughly blend the Mel's Mix.

Now that I had my Mel's Mix all blended, I removed the plants from the other bed, and put the compost from that planter into a trashcan. I'm sure that I can find plenty of uses for the extra compost; actually, I still have 2 cu. ft. each of Vermiculite and peat moss left over, so I can make more Mel's Mix when I need it. I filled each of the three planters with 6 cu. ft. of Mel's Mix, and then replanted all the plants.

The blended compost on the tarp.

Add the other ingredients and mix it up

And in the planter