Finally Sourced Partially Composted Bark Fines!

Earlier this week I got a phone call from a friend who has been working on getting his dad's garden area set up. They got about 2 yards of what looked like pretty decent topsoil. After a couple days of light rain however, the topsoil became a mud pit. It was not draining well at all. Someone recommended sand. I'm glad I stopped them before that happened. I can't imagine what they would have had to work with after sand was added!

ANYWAYS... I mentioned to them that the best bet was going to be a bark based amendment. Really, the soil was great when partially wet, but became anaerobic and very compact when saturated. At this time I thought our local co-op only carried a fresh bark mulch. That's all I had seen there and all I was told they had. Yesterday I drove in to check it out and see if it would work for the garden. It would. It was fine - it had some longer strands but for the most part it was fine. Then I got a glimpse of something in the next stall over. It was more fine. It was darker. It had almost no sapwood in it. Nice.

Fortunately when Brian when to pick up the mulch, he was told to check out the partially composted bark fines also, and decided on that. I suggested that before buying a yard, just grab a bucket full and do some tests to find out a good ratio to till in. I'll stop by next week and see how it turned out.

BUT... the real part of this story is that I finally found a local supply of partially composted bark fines! After waiting for sales on bags of bark mulch at local stores (that was neither partially composted, nor very fine) I finally found what I need. Well, for next year anyways. I'm all set for this season.

Bark fines are the base of a soil-less mix used by many in containers. Read more about bark fines here.