Choice Of Media

I love gardening but could never manage it properly since long. It was very difficult for me to work with soil. They are heavy, forms hard cake and so difficult to break them down at times. If wet, I have to tackle the mud. After the job is done, the cleaning part is really horrible. I was searching for a long time for an alternative.

What does the soil do? They are mainly the anchoring media. One has to add fertilizer to the soil, be it in any form, which the plants use and thrive. I read about hydroponics. My experience with planted aquarium also helped. I started to think about soil less media. It will be light and easy to handle.

 The first ingredient required is cocopeat. It is the coconut waste compressed into blocks of different sizes from 600 grams to 6 kgs.  When you add water to this it swells up at least 5 to 6 times and it is an excellent media and I should say the primary media. It is light weight, remains useful for at least 5 – 6 years, retain moisture for long time and porous.  I need to add necessary fertilizer to get started.

 I started with 40% cocopeat, 30% cow dung manure and 30% vermicompost. It became very light mix and plants were doing really really well with this mix. After this season, I found some problem with this mix.

1. The cow dung manure, though good and relatively cheap usually have many weed seeds and some insects, I really don’t know whether they are good for the plants or not!

2. Soil less media tend to have air gaps unless they are compressed very hard. The roots in this air gap don’t get nutrients and it actually harms.

3. Some micro nutrients in the soil, like humic acid, required for root growth, I was missing. There may be many more such ingredients!

4. Anchoring in this loose media is troublesome for the plants. They cannot withstand strong winds. I had to give support to each and every plants, those otherwise don’t need support.

My inference therefore soilless is good for some fancy indoor plants but for veggies I need to change the ratio and ingredients. I my next post I will write what changes I have done.