As written in my earlier post I was little disappointed with
cow dung manure and realized that little soil is required, reason mentioned
there, I replaced the cow dung manure with the soil. With this amount of soil I
can get the benefit of both the world. The media does not form hard cakes. It
remains nicely granular, fairly light weight and retains moisture.
Along with this I have tried some soil amending agent. So many soil
amendment agents are used. They are mainly used to aerate the soil. They are Perlite, a volcanic
amorphous material has water retaining capacity. These granules are extremely
light weight. vermiculite, a hydrous
polysilicate material serves the same purpose. Coarse sand also aerate soil and
facilitates drainage.
Perlite and vermiculite are relatively costly. I used in
some containers , but did not find any difference with those where I didn't
add, so now I don't use that. I, of course use sand in those plants, who does
not like wet feet, like papaya. Another amender I use is Neem cake dust. Neem
has some nutritional value and keep the pests at bay.
Regarding source of the cocopeat , Kolkata is
not a good place. Many nurseries has not yet heard about this, so no question
of selling.
How do you reuse the media in the containers after a season is done? I have so much cocopeat + compost mix from the winter's tomatoes, etc but it is full of roots, and I am not sure what to do to it before reusing it.
ReplyDeleteI usually keep the roots, unless they are very thick trunk root. I add compost at the end of season and use the same media. The roots will ultimately decompose and add nutrition to the media.
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