Mel's Mix

The time finally came to make some 'Mel's Mix'


I worked out the square footage I needed. 
Area: 4'x4'=16 square feet. 
Volume = 16' x 0.5' = 8 cubic feet. 


As there are equal amounts for each ingredient that makes it about 2.66 cubic feet (8'/3') for each part. 


So - for two boxes (which I have) it will be 5.33 cubic feet of each thing. 


This is what happened:

As you can see I got the Vermiculite from ULINE. 

It is used as a fancy packaging for chemicals. It was the cheepest place I could find. 

I think it worked out just over $20 for each bag. I picked it up to save postage. 

There was 4 cubic feet of Vermiculite in each bag. 

As for the Peat Moss - these bags were about $9 each. They had two and a half cubic feet. 

If you have never seen Vermiculite then here is a picture. 

It is flakey and shines like Mica but it is more soft and spongy. 

It is also fire resistant so has some good thermal properties. 

I think it is used for Mel's Mix to retain water.

So I have a total of 8 cubic feet of vermiculite. 

And 7.5 cubic feet of peat moss. 

All I had to do is match with 8 cubic feet of compost...

I got a bag of Moo-Nure as it was cheep and I could mix it up with my organic compost for that extra bit of rottenness that plants like. 

The actual compost pile I had been getting ready was wet the day I decided to use it. I thought it was a bit course - so I rubbed it through an earth sieve that I had made... 

If you have a spare wheely bin around then you can do this standing up and collect everything in the bin. 

The annoying thing was that there were loads of earth worms. I did not see them sometimes - so they probably got rubbed into the sieve... gross really....

Anyway - the left over stuff that did not get through the sieve I slapped into the wheel barrow - with all the worms I collected. I put this in the garden for the runner beans (pole beans). 

As you can see it was quite an operation. 

It probably took quite a few hours to get 8 cubic feet worth. 

The Finished Product!! it was quite a nice smooth fine compost in the end. 

I got some tarp out to mix this stuff on. This was a good move as not only is there no tidy up afterwards - but you can roll the earth right into the bed without having to shovel too much...

I used the universal measure of the Bucket. I started with five buckets worth off each ingredient and it worked out about right. It is not worth mixing too much as it gets too heavy (as I found out later). 

The reason why it gets heavy is that you are supposed to water the ingredients to stop them blowing away. It got windy - so I did water the stuff quite a bit. 

'In the mix'

If you want to see the finished result - then check out the next post...