Expensive Dirt

One of the compost components

One of the first challenges turns out to be finding the ingredients for the soil mix that Square Foot (SF) Gardening author Mel Bartholomew specifies. Mel’s Mix, as he calls it, is 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 mixed composts, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. The coarse vermiculite is especially problematic. There are only a few Web sources that come up in Google searches, and shipping a 4 cu.ft. bag to Chicago costs as much or more than the product itself. I see numbers totaling 40 to 50 dollars.

Turns out there’s a forum on gardenweb.com for SF gardeners, where many posters asking for local sources for vermiculite are often instructed to search out sources for hydroponic growing suppliers in their communities. At first, I didn’t get far with that. Then by some coincidence that I don’t recall, the subject came up at Easter dinner at my mother’s house, and my daughter and son-in-law-to-be, avid home brewers, told me about Brew & Grow in Chicago, a supplier for home brewers and hydroponic growers. Eureka, they have what I want, at the right price.

The rest of the ingredients will come from our own home compost pile, and maybe from a bag each of Bat Guano and Earthworm Casings, also sold by Brew and Grow.

What’s not to like?