Soil for mineralized soil

[chris_todd]

This weekend I started soaking the topsoil I bought for making mineralized soil substrate, only to find the topsoil has quite a bit of wood chip or bark debris in it. May I assume this is not going to work?

[ingg]

They often do - but how much is a quite a bit?

This typically gets sifted out at the end, but some "soils" are more wood than others...

[chris_todd]

Let's put it this way, I checked the bag to be sure I hadn't accidentally bought mulch. There was a lot of small wood chips, chunks, and bits. I tried straining some of it out, but there was so much it clogged my strainer.

[ingg]

I'll post up how to make a simple sieve this week.