Rate/Contents of Your Oldest Box of Mel's Mix

**llama momma** 4/10/2012, 2:15 pm

I'm wondering about the oldest boxes of Mel's Mix out there.
How old is yours? Anything you want to tell us such as, did the peat break down, were there changes to the vermiculite? Maybe share a close up picture of the contents of your oldest box of Mel's Mix. Are the contents close to all compost yet, have the contents settled a lot, did you add peat or vermiculite. Anything you want to share about your oldest box would let the rest of us know what to expect down the road. Thanks! LM

**sfg4uKim** 4/10/2012, 2:34 pm

EXCELLENT question. I'm glad you asked.

**llama momma** 4/10/2012, 2:43 pm

Thank you Kim. Someone was asking in another thread if peat breaks down and it got me thinking so I started up a new thread and expanded on her question. I'm going outside right now to take a close up pic of my oldest bed which is a youngin of less than 2 yrs old and note the changes in a follow up post.

tomperrin 4/10/2012, 2:59 pm

llama momma wrote:I'm wondering about the oldest boxes of Mel's Mix out there.
How old is yours? ....

I only had one year old MM - I have to tell you I was really pleased - The mix was very friable - easy to work with - all black. It did settle somewhat. This was not an issue because I swapped out all but two of my old square for new ones - more for esthetics than anything else. I just topped off the old squares with new MM. Any peat moss was unrecognizable as such.

Had this been plain old garden dirt, it would have been hard and difficult to work with. It takes years to get enough humus into regular garden soil to reach the kind of friability we have with MM.

Tom

**llama momma** 4/10/2012, 4:57 pm

My first and oldest box is about 18 months old. The sides were 12 inches deep and filled with about 11 inches of Mel's Mix because at that time, I had a hard time with the concept of 6 inches. It is down 3 inches but I really lost two. Can't make out any peat whatsoever. When it's wet like in the picture, it is all black with vemiculite-speckles. I suppose some settling is expected. Underneath, after the cardboard broke down, the mix may have slowly oozed through the hardware cloth? The next box on the ground I think I would try lining the hardware cloth with weed barrier to slow down loss of mix. I don't plan to add peat or vermiculite, just add compost like crazy. Overall, very, Very happy with the harvest results. Here is a close up of the corner of the box -
Rate/Contents of Your Oldest Box of Mel's Mix April_10

Rate/Contents of Your Oldest Box of Mel's Mix April_10

**llama momma** 4/11/2012, 8:40 am

Hope it's OK to re visit this topic.
I was hoping for more responses from our veteran square footers. Very Happy

**walshevak** 4/11/2012, 9:58 am

I only have 1 yr old beds, but proof of how well MM stands up is here. FYI beds were kept watered sorta (sprinkler on a timer that didn't hit all areas of all beds) during last summers extreme heat and dry. NO HUMAN INTERACTION FOR 4 MONTHS.

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t9233-is-there-anything-as-sad-as-an-abandoned-sfg

Fresh cups of compost and topdressing with fresh compost produced a winter garden that is still producing chard. Pulled the last of the kale 2 weeks ago to make room for new spring veggies. Old chard will come up soon. (been out of town for 2 weeks). Winter spinach still producing.

Kay

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Rate/Contents of Your Oldest Box of Mel's Mix

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Year old MM

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