The Frey Brothers mulch is obviously the better one. I always sift my mulch through a 1/2 inch screen even though 90 % of it goes through just to be on the safe side. I suspect that, in your case, you could probably not have to sift.

I then sift through a 1/4 inch screen because I found that otherwise my mix would be too water retentive. I do not know if you need to do that because I do not know the environment in which you keep your plants and which plants you own..

Thank you for your response. I plan to do some container tomatoes and peppers outside in southeastern PA. I also plan to repot my kumquat plants in The 511 mix to put outside in summer and inside in winter. I think I will also put my coffee plant in this mix and keep inside mostly as it has been getting sun burnt leaves.

I use the Frey brothers Soil Conditioner for 5-1-1 as well as the Agway for gritty mix. The Frey Bros contains "forest products" and it's like the pine and peat in one bag...so skip the peat if you use it.

Oh, I did not realize the Frey brothers had forest products, mblan. I didn’t actually see the ingredients on the bag. Where did you see that?

So then for the mix would you just do like 5 parts Frey brothers and 1 part perlite? Still add the garden lime in same amount?

They say "forest products" as a cya because it's impossible to bark trees without getting a little sap wood into the mix. It's probably 99%+ bark.

Joe, Maybe that was a different product I was thinking of, I'll have to look to be sure.

Anyhow, Frey bros SC contains much more fine particles than the Agway Pine bark mulch. I've been using 5-1-1 for over 10 years, I'm so familiar with 5-1-1 I generally just mix it by eye, but yes, it's basically FBSC and pearlite and lime. I think I throw a part or so of Agway PBM if it looks too dusty. I also make 3-1-1 for my salvias, because they require more water.

I don't sift FBSC, but you could sift it and put 5 parts of the sifted bark, one part of the sifted fines, and one part perlite, until you get used to it

Mblan,

Please let me know what you find out. I ended up sifting and added perlite. I checked the pH and it was 7.5 so I did add a part of sphagnum peat moss that brought it down to about 7 or slightly lower. I didnt end up adding any lime due to the pH. Do you all usually check the pH before adding lime? I added some garden tone fertilizer that added some of the magnesium and calcium that you would get from the lime.