I may have missed this from discussions in other posts, but what was your container mix before adding vermiculite. It is not something I would have thought of as a go to amendment for used soil. My routine for freshening containers is plain old leaves and bagged compost added in fall or early spring. I have a huge bag of vermiculite taking up garage space. Nice.
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Originally Posted by maxjohnson
Just a musing post. This may turn out to be a broad and pointless and gets no replies.
I basically went and remixed all my containers yesterday with additional vermiculite because all of them were more compacted than they needed to be. In the end I got extra mixes from un-compacting.
I wondered does some materials retains heat better than other? Which type of consistency would distribute a more even temperature throughout and retains heat better (more compacted or more porous). And is more wet or less wet better for heat retention. Then there is the microbes activity that influences it.
Yes, I know how big the container is and the material it's made of makes difference as well. But just in general, I'm more interested in how the actual make up and texture of the mixes can influence it, or not all? Or maybe it makes so little difference that it doesn't matter compared to more impacting factors like the sun and the container itself.
Obviously you don't want something that overheats also, I have a feeling it was better for me to have added more aeration to my mixes.
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