coconut coir

Rather than buying foreign vegetative waste, why not buy British ?
See :Pro-Grow

 

Something to bear in mind, water.
The amount of water required to wash and then rehydrate coir is roughly 600L to a cubic meter.
When we see wild fires and hosepipe bans coming into force on the news, is it wise to use coir as a soil conditioner? There is other organic matter that will do the job, plus it would be cheaper and has not been shipped thousands of miles.

 

I don't really plan to hydrate it with tap water. I anticipate mother nature will do that for me over winter. I'm certainly not planning to do anything at all with it right now. I'm still formulating my cunning plan.

If there's something just as good or better for the job then I'm open to that. My concern is a lot of 'conventional' options are not very eco friendly. Most commercial compost is based on peat, and even peat free compost is probably not that eco friendly, assuming it's made from garden waste collected in slow moving lorries on green waste day. From an eco standpoint, coconut coir seems legit, considering its produced close to it's source, and while it has to travel thousands of miles, being dehydrated it's lightweight and compact when in transit.

I could be miles off on this, like I say, I'm still in the early stages of planning. I'd be more than happy to be enlightened.

 

This is a stupid idea for a front garden, but i grow grazing rye on my allotment every winter, you just dig it in in spring.
It breaks up clay, but you need to do it a couple of years at least.
But its cheap and eco friendly.

 

In which case, the way forward is to make your own compost from whatever your lifestyle provides, limit your activities to a minimum , so as to conserve energy and resources.
My view is that " the slow- moving lorries" are providing a service to those who cannot/willnot do the job themselves and the clock of sustainability starts from the point of delivery to my plot, rather than landfill.
Cost/effect is part of sustainability and the product refered above, Pro-grow, is available c. £15 per tonne (plus haulage) and VAT, taken in full loads . (12tonne)

 

I agree with all of this. And I do make my own compost. But I don't get anywhere near enough. Priority goes to my back garden which is lush. I want to make the front equally rush but as we spend most of our garden time out the back, the front has so far had far less commitment.

 

Good point. The solution to that problem might be to simply leave it out in neat piles on the surface, let the rain get it, then spread it and dig it in.

 

Jiffy pellets, we used to sell loads years ago, not anymore. They have also been doing peat free ones for years now, made with coir.

 

Could this be a better option to my original plan?

 

Not something I would recommend to you or to any of our customers. When you have heavy claggy clay soil it tends to be very fine. To break it up, you need to incorporate larger particles to divide the clay, this is why its recommend to use, sharp sand, horticultural grit and even gravel, but you will still need some organic material.

When somebody come to us asking for something to rectify heavy clay soil, then we recommend grit and our own brand soil conditioner. Our soil conditioner is a blend of composted bark, horse manure and spent mushroom compost. We found that having 50% composted bark this doesn't decompose as quickly in the soil as the other organic matter, plus the different particle sizes of bark, again helping to prevent the fine clay binding back together.

Clay soils / RHS Gardening

Clay soils: plants for / RHS Gardening

 

There are numerous grades of bark, below is an image of composted bark to the left and amenity bark to the right, 14mm spanner for particle size reference




The composted bark we use to make our organic soil conditioner, as by the image you can see it is finer than the amenity bark which people tend to use as weed suppressant.

Image below, the composted bark to the right and to the left what it looks like mixed with horse manure and mushroom compost and was mixed about 10 days ago. It has not been bagged off, just mixed and piled loose in a polytunnel.



The trade landscapers we supply will purchase either the soil conditioner or just the composted bark to rectify clay soil, plus sand or grit. They will have already visited the site so are able to advise better than me what and how much is needed.

 

I know that sand and grit are often recommended for clay soil, but I've learned that lesson, and will never do it again. The sand and grit functions in the same way as it does in concrete mix. I literally had to get my pick axe out to rectify the situation.

 

True, clay, sand and water will make a mix akin to concrete, sounds like you did not incorporate enough sand and grit, volume is required. If you have 100 ton of clay soil you will need nearly exactly the same amount of sand and grit especially if your not mixing in any organic material.