CREATING MEL’S MIXTM & COMPOST MEL’S MIXTM MATERIALS The magic of Square Foot Gardening is not only the space planning, but in the soil mix. These are the ingredients and quantities for Mel’s MixTM, which will ensure that your Square Foot Garden thrives and produces far better than gardens grown in standard garden soil. + + One moderately successful substitute is perlite, another feet, sometimes in quarts. And sometimes the products are nonorganic mineral—specifically a volcanic glass. Perlite is compressed, which further complicates the process. You For simplicity, here’s a table that shows the total volume cheaper than vermiculite, and it improves the friability of don’t need to worry too much about this, though, because of some common square foot box sizes: 1/3 COARSE a growing medium in much the same way that vermiculite when you create Mel’s Mix, all that matters1/3 is the COMPOST volume— 1/3 PEAT MOSS does, which is why many commercial potting soils use it nothing else. BOX DIMENSIONS BOX VOLUME VERMICULITE instead of vermiculite. But perlite does not have the same Calculating the volume of Mel’s Mix you’ll need for moisture-holding capacity as vermiculite. a Square Foot Garden box isn’t as complicated as it first 4 × 4 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 8 cubic feet seems. For those of you interested in the precise math, we’ll 4 × 8 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 16 cubic feet begin with a description of how to calculate the volume of a given Square Foot Garden box. But after that description, 4 × 12 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 24 cubic feet we’ll also give you a chart that gives you volumes for var- 4 × 16 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 32 cubic feet IN MEL’S WORDS ious common box sizes. So, if you’re not up to the math, just jump ahead to the table or try the soil calculator on 2 × 4 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 4 cubic feet www.squarefootgardening.com. Perlite is another natural material mined out of MEL’S MIX™ CALCULATOR CHARTS2 × 8 feet × 6 inches (½ foot) 8 cubic feet the earth and used in agriculture for the same pur- pose as vermiculite—to break up and loosen poor VOLUME OF A SQUAREHere are FOOT some handy charts explaining how much2 × 12 Mel’s feet × 6Mix™ inches you (½ foot) need for 12common cubic feet SFG box sizes and explaining how many 5 soils and to retain moisture. I personally don’t like GARDEN BOX gallon buckets each of peat moss, compost, and2 ×coarse 16 feet × vermiculite6 inches (½ foot) you need16 cubicto make feet specific volumes of Mel’s Mix™. 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