I've been thinking about an alternative or addition to the commercial soilless seedling starter. Each year I collect bins of leaf mole that I till back into the soil. I decided to see if I could mill the mold fine enough to use as a soilless medium by itself or as an addition to the commercial seedling starters. It mills very fine by running it through a series of sieves. Seems to have the same feels as the commercial stuffs--roughly. Wasn't hard to do. It dries quickly--but also retains mosture well when wetted. I did a crude soil analysis. Its pH is 7.5; it has a high nitrogen content, a very high phosphorous content, and a medium high potassium content. I was surprised at the nitrogen content. Thought the nitrogen would leech out, but it must be less volatile. The mold is made from a combination of oak and soft maple leaves about a 1:4 ratio.

I want to try it next spring as an experiement, growing some tomato seeds in commerial stuff and some in a combination of milled leaf mold and commerial stuff. I'll have to figure out a mixture of mold and soilless stuff that lowers the pH to around 6 or 6.5.

I also realize I'll have to sterilize the mold. I was thinking of a novel way of doing this. I also make beer and one stage in the process is sparging some remaining sugars out of the malted grains. I though I could used sparging with liguid bleach and then with water to kill any pathogens in the mold.

So what do you think of my plan? Also, I realize the mold has more nutrients than are need to start seeds. Will that be a problem?