What uses have you found for turface fines, the leftover sand-sized turface we get after screening turface mvp for the gritty mix? I tried it for seedlings and it is a distant last place compared to other substrates like pumice.

What about the idea of burying this under a hill of sandy loam soil, to act as a water reservoir?

I add it to my raised beds and use it for hypertufa projects.

Al

tapla said: I add it to my raised beds and use it for hypertufa projects.

What are your raised bed soil mix formulas? What percentage of those mixes would be turface fines?

When I established the raised beds (RB) more than 20 years ago, The medium I put together consisted of pine bark, sand, Turface MVP, sphagnum peat, and Michigan peat (reed/sedge peat). It was too high in organic material, but extremely productive so long as I kept up with watering.

The 2 issues I had was having to water every day or every other day, and shrinkage due to the carbon from cleaved hydrocarbon chains gassing off as CO2. To combat the shrinkage, I would mulch with the same pine bark I was using for the 5:1:1 and gritty mix. As time went on, I saved the bottom half of the root masses I cut off during repotting sessions, and whatever grow media I raked out of the roots prior to root pruning and added that to the beds. Most of the 160 sq ft of growing area is now devoted to well established trees being grown on as future bonsai,







so I only water during droughty spells, and the media and pruned roots left over from repotting keeps the beds topped off now. If I had it to do over, I would simply use about 80% topsoil and the rest organic matter - probably pine bark and reed/sedge peat and some dolomitic lime.

Al