Nicely done! As I was watching this, I was thinking .. this mix is similar to Gary’s Best Top Pot… LOL then the end confirms it. Gary’s Best Top Pot is hard to find and sourcing the ingredients to do the DIY version is pricey. For my mix I followed RARE DRAGON FRUIT channel’s recommendations to use SunShine Mix #4. I amended with sand and pumice… ratio is 4:2:1 (SunShine : sand : pumice) on the top 10 inches (per Gary’s videos, roots don’t grow that far down). The bottom/lower portion of the container is more like 1:1 (SunShine : sand); it’s more cost effective. SunShine mix is sold at Home Depot and Lowe’s for about $35 / 2.2-3 cu ft. Sand is ~$4 / 50 lbs. Pumice is the tricky one to price. My local nursery is the cheapest I can find that sells 8qt for ~$10. Gary mentioned rice hulls can be substituted for peat moss. His manufacturer said it was too light and blew all over the place, so they didn’t use it in the final Top Pot recipe. Rice hulls are really cheap and sustainable, so I ordered some from Amazon. I’m going to try to incorporate in my rooting pots and future soil amendments.
@@eyeDtenTea oh wow, thanks for sharing all this information. I saw that Rare Dragon Fruit (which is Paul's other channel) has been using this mix called Sunshine Mix, but was not sure where to get it. Thanks for the tip, and also for how you use it! Pumice is fairly inexpensive at my local Animal Feed store (something like $15 for a 40 lb bag). Did not know about the rice hull thing either, thanks for that tip as well! Happy gardening!!
@@GreenLove1 Watching more of Gary’s Matsuoka’s seminars.. Since you are replicating the Top Pot soil, you might want to look into mycorrhizal fungi (this one seminar cover’s it ru-vid.comJIgefqwYVFc?si=lacWJxw9KI7NgG48 [jump to 1:25:55]). His Top Pot soil doesn’t contain mycorrhizal fungi, but most natural fertilizers do, or you can buy the fungi by itself. SunShine Mix #4 contains mycorrhizal fungi.
@@eyeDtenTea great tip, thank you! I use woodchips mulch all over my garden, so I have plenty of mychorrhizal fungi that I can harvest. Will watch the whole seminar later, sound like and interesting one. Thanks again!💚
I’ve got a source for the rice hulls/husk recommendation.. from Gary Matsuoka’s live stream ~2 months ago titled “Soil-less Soil Kills Your Plants, Water Won’t” ru-vid.com35uz3S1tLlo?si=LkYPVPogCRx6b6z2 [jump to 47:28]
@@trudithomas9677 a high percentage of dragon fruit seedlings seem to do that. Of the 20 or so seedlings that I start off with, I might get 2 to grow to size
@@IIrandhandleII Not yet, but up until this point, I only had one planter, Now I have 3, we'll see. Why, have you had issues with Dragon Fruit plants tipping over their planter? They do grow large and heavy very quickly, so I am not surprised
@@GreenLove1 I have seen others having an issue with tipping and they have to reinforce the top structure. I'm starting out with containers and want to make sure I do it right the first time.
