Hi
@pone31 - so made the 5-1-1 mix this weekend and it was both labor intensive and expensive lol. I have four semi-dwarf citrus trees coming in this week so I needed quite a bit of mix since I've got 14" pots coming in today as well. On top of locating and procuring all of these materials I also had to build two shaker trays (1/4" and 1/2") for the pine fines since I could not find an affordable option that was pre-screened and consistently sized.
As you can see in the images below I started out with the pines out of the bag. Lots of fines, lots of large pieces, and lots of 1/4" size and below. First off, I screened out the larger parts via the 1/2" screen whereby the fines and ideal sized pieces fell through. After completing this step, I moved to the 1/4" size and kept everything left behind (between 1/2" and 1/4"). The fines fell through (<1/4"). Appeared to be a ton of dust sized fines that I removed and set to the side. I realize that some of these fines are necessary to maintain moisture post-watering, but didn't want too much as to negate the point of putting this together (impeccable drainage). In order to accomplish this, I added 1/3" of the fines back into the 1/4" pieces. The result was 25 gallons of mix (five x five gallons buckets of mix).
The easiest part was adding a five gallon bucket of sphagnum peat moss and a five gallon bucket of coarse perlite that I sifted through a 1/8" colander I have in the house (wife not thrilled). This was just to get rid of the dust and keep the larger pieces. Laid this all on a tarp, added the lime (tablespoon per gallon) and then turned it over three or four times with a shovel and lightly wet it after each turn.
The result is below. Time will tell, but it is incredibly airy and when I squeeze a handful of this together it simply falls apart.
