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Mineralizing Soil and Iron: Frustrated!

1K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  bnylo 
#1 ·
Okay, I've started mineralizing soil from my yard. I gave up on trying to find any clean top soil for sale and I can't seem to get the MGOCPS anywhere either, can't even order it online and have it delivered to GA. So, I went out in the yard and got what I needed.

Now, according to the article by Aaron Talbot, I need pottery clay to provide iron to the soil. I can only find self-drying pottery clay, will that matter? Why is it so hard to find the recommended ingredients? Amazon has the muriate of potash and the dolomite (which comes with magnesium...I hope that is okay), but I can't find red clay that isn't self-drying. I am SO frustrated! Any help out there as to the clay/iron source? Thanks!
 
#5 ·
One thing to keep in mind is that you're making dirt. This isn't rocket surgery - the plants will be happier to grow in just about any form of dirt you could give them as compared to something like sand, blasting medium, fired clay, or gravel, in which they will also usually grow reasonably well.

Reasonable substitutions are generally fine, as long as you're not adding something with herbicides or insecticides in the mix. You can find dozens of people writing things like, "I wouldn't trust XYZ in place of PDQ," but almost no evidence of any superiority of PDQ over XYZ, and usually no evidence that either XYZ or PDQ are even needed. In any case, by the time the entire mineralization process is done, most anything water soluble should be washed away anyway.
 
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