Your 1/4" screened product looks good. That said, you can "bulk" it up by running some of those bigger chunks through some 1/2" screen to add back into the 5-1-1. This way you're not wasting so much...(by 'wasting' I mean not using it for its intended 5-1-1 purpose...I still use 1/2" plus size chunks all the time for various secondary applications such as mulch, helping to build up low topsoil sp ots out in the yard, composting, donate it to schools/bio classes for their reptile tanks, etc). Getting only 1/3 usable material out of a bag, no matter how cheap the bag, is not good bang for your buck (and time/effort spend sifting), so you need to find a use for some of that extra 2/3.

Aside, but related -- if you ever want to make Gritty, your 1/4" stuff is the perfect bark ingredient for that mix minus any dusty fines.

Thanks for the advice. I knew I should have bought the 1/2" screen when I got my sifter a couple years ago. Looks like I'll have to make my own 1/2" sifter now. It should be pretty easy to make a DIY sifter now that I have the exact dimensions I need from the sifter I purchased.

If you want to stay at the

That is some beautiful bark.....
I bet it smells great.

Josh

Well, 1/4" probably is fine to use but most of what did not make it through the sift seems to be still usable for potting mix. You can make your own 1/2" sift from wire clothe . Nothing to it . Make a frame from, say, 2 by 3 and fasten the wire cloth to one face of it.

I would use the bigger piece as filler at the bottom of container, for better drainage from the bottom

My thoughts too, Josh!!

Nice looking ...

Great find!!!!

Laura

Last night I ended up making my own identical 1/2" screening frame which cost about $20 in materials and about an hour's worth of time to make.

This morning I re-screened the leftover from the other day using the 1/2" screen and was far more pleased with the results. Rather than only yielding 33% of the bag as usable, I now yielded at least 80% use.

What was left was tossed into my landscaping. I then used a shovel to thoroughly mixed the fine 1/4" screened material from the other day with the newly screen 1/2" mix. Since the former was still in my wheel barrow it was easy to mix it pretty uniformly.

I guess I'm set to go!

Good work!

Josh

Way to go, njitgrad,

Your original UNSIFTED bark looked pretty nice. Now we know it just had about 20% bigger than 1/2".

If Josh speaks against using those big pieces at the bottom, How about on the top, AS MULCH ?

Yes! The big pieces make a nice top mulch, indeed.

Josh

ahhhh...
I'm confused. All the posts about PWT indicate the particles should be the same size. Just now I'm coming on threads that talk about 1/2" being fine with the 1/8 - 3/8s.

Which is it?

Everything being the same size is an ideal. In practicality most everyone uses 1/8-3/8".

But here the 1/2" stuff fits in....

I wouldn't sweat it... primarily because from a prior "Container Soils -- Water Movement and Retention" thread, Al notes: "dust to 3/8 is best, but if you have some 1/2" pieces in there, don't sweat it."

A substrate with 1/2" particles will have different properties from one with smaller particles, but only by a small amount. Here's a study quantifying the different properties of substrates of varying pine bark sizes. For larger bark particles, air space is increased a bit at the expense of available water (which makes sense intuitively... bigger chunks will have larger spaces between them).

The researchers note that available water (for plant uptake) might be insufficient in a 1/2" substrate without more frequent watering... but that's with 100% 1/2" pine bark. In our 5-1-1 case, the smaller pine bark/peat/perlite matter would fill those large intra 1/2" spaces if the mix is mixed well.

Sure, uniform particulate size is more "optimal" still, but at this point (after having screened for nuggets beyond 1/2"), the diminishing returns on effort input vs. results output really begin, in my opinion.

I understand. I appreciate the clarification. I become paralyzed with worry about killing everything I've babied!

I've had no issue using the 1/2"....my tomatoes are doing just great and this year I tried yellow zucchini which also loves it.

Good to hear!
I just went and picked up pine fines, spaghnum peat moss block and have pearlite. I'm going to fuss with my growstones and see how it goes.
Nice to hear I'm overthinking this.