Slow and steady wins the day!

You will always learn more from your failures than your successes, so don't be afraid to experiment.

Congrats on your first of many successful cures.

Jo

Way to go Demaris! You should have seen all the boo boo's I made when I first started out - I have a nice pile of crumbled 'thingies' in one back corner hidden behind the garage! But, as Jo said you learn from your mistakes. I don't often have a disaster any more. Hope you have many more successes.

Jilly :)

Jilly, you never have booboos or failures. Think of the future when people dig your thingies up in your yard. Scientist will claim you were a tribe of Bigfoots that made pots out of some strange substance and sold to the public from the back of your space craft.
I make little faces and "thingies" and after leaching out the lime I place them in the creek for the kids to find. They are thrilled with their artifacts. Billie

O.K. Billie - I will never call them boo boo's again - instead they will be artifacts from now on! LOL

Jilly

demaris, Wet/damp peat moss isn't a good idea. When you mix all your dry ingredients together the portland cement, being very fine particle, will coat everything. You won't get an even distribution of cement on everything by adding wet/damp peat moss. It's not dry peat moss that's causing the problem. If that were the case, you'd have to wet the vermiculite and perlite too which both absorb water. Do you mix all your dry ingredients together first until they are blended into one color?
Horticulture vermiculite is usually very fine because it's used to start seedlings and add to potting mixes. Billie

Billie, I mixed the dry ingredients very well, using my hands (gloved!) That peat, while very old, is just plain Canadian sphagnum peat, and when I sifted it, it sifted into very fine particles with lots of dust. In an older post, I related how a mix of sand mix 1 to 1 with this peat failed to harden. I just think there is something wrong with it.

The vermiculite I got at the garden store was really big chunks, not at all like the vermiculite we once insulated a chimney with. That was quite fine flakes, very uniform. I'd really rather use peat; I like the color and texture it gives. I think I'll get some new peat and try again.

I "decanted" my sphere last night; I'm going to post a pic of it in another thread. Thanks for your help!

I find myself agreeing with Billie.:)
Dry peat is better in your recipe.
Some sphagnum peat is very high acid.
It's sold for plants that like high acid.
High acid peat might be your problem.
Also if it was out in the rain for years it will also get more acidic over time. They don't call it 'acid rain' for nothing.:)

More musings on the wet/dry peat subject: I've got this old bale of peat that has been sitting around for years that is so dry that you have to chip it off in layers. I wouldn't try to use it in 'tufa but I have tried to mix it in my soil for planting and it was so dry that it actually repelled water and kept it from being absorbed into the soil. I know that happens with potting mix, too, sometimes if allowed to dry out too much and there are things you can add to help it absorb water again (like rubbing alcohol).

I don't understand the chemical processes very well but is it possible that the dry peat could have kept the water from getting to the particals?

I do use damp peat, just because I store it in the bales and although they're under my work table they are exposed to the elements. It's not wet when I use it but it is damp and fluffy. I don't know if the dampness could be underminding the strength of my work--I haven't experienced any problems with setting up and curing and things seem to be lasting, even left out all winter although, admittedly, I live in a very temperate zone. Not only do we have the maritime influence but because of the Puget Sound convergence zone we are a little warmer and drier than Seattle.

We have been having some gorgeous weather lately--Happy Friday everyone!

Deb

Demaris, There may be another reason for the first failure. Did you use all the peat dust in your mix? If the particles were very small also, you may have thrown the ratio of your mix off. What I mean is when measuring by volume and using the fine peat you may have actually used more than you intended. So if your mix was 1:1:1 you may have increased the peat to a 3 or 4 or more if it was very fine.

This peat discussion is very helpful. Deb, my peat is exactly as you described your old bale. It was handy and I thought peat was peat. And Rockhewer, this peat was indeed very fine and dusty when I sifted it. I can believe it would repel water.

I'm going to buy some fresh peat and try that. And just for grins I'm going to try and re-hydrate that old peat and see what it does. At the very least, I can bury it in a garden somewhere.

I've been using peat from a bale that is several years old and very dry. I pull chunks off and grind it thru a fine colander - very dusty, I wear a dustmask doing this. So it is very fine and dry, but works well. Maybe there is something to the acidity?

Hi Chris
There have been so many posts about the mysterious failure of stuff made with peat (it can't always be too much water)that I did a bit of research a while ago and found that peat can vary from neutral to being pretty high in acid.
The high acid peat is coveted by growers of blueberries and other acid loving crops.
Now I don't know if high acid peat is even a problem for tufa but it certainly can't help.:)
I don't think mixing a bit of lime in your peat would be a bad idea if your tufa isn't curing correctly. It can't hurt as long as you wear your gloves.:)
I've been meaning to pick up a few of those test strips to test my peat.

I have been very successful with mixing my dry ingredients together (peat, sand, vermiculite, perlite, whatever) without the portland cement, dampening it slightly, and letting it sit overnight. The next day I add the cement, mix together, and add the water.

This process has proved to be my favorite. It keeps the dust down, and I feel like the peat does not absorb too much water this way. It is not so wet that it clumps the next day, it does mix easily together but with no dust.

I think some of my earliest attempts were more brittle and did not last due to the peat's absorbing too much of the water. I am glad to hear you had more success with your later trials!

Mabel in Maine

demaris, I've been making hypertufa for a long time and use peat moss in a lot of my recipes. Age of the peat moss doesn't matter or whether you sift it. I sift it very fine for some leaf castings. Most of the time our "artifacts" are due to "operator error". Usually the only ingredient that we use that can go bad is portland cement. You'll get it with a little more practice. Billie

Thanks for all this great input. I know I will get it sooner or later. But I'm also getting NEW PEAT. I've got a grudge against this old stuff now, anyway....

I have a bale of peat that is bout 3 years old and in a big clump, I chop it and put it in a blender and it works fine, the only time I had a problem, was when my portland was old and had chunks in it.
bonnie