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I am in a fairly unusual position of being able to get large quantities of bags of used coir at no cost from time-to-time. Can anyone confirm if mixing coir + compost (home made) will make an OK'ish general purpose mix for a raised bed growing vegetables (like carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans etc)?

For the sake of clarity, I'm a beginner here, so I'm trying to keep things simple - Right now is "works OK" and simple/generic is better for me then "ideal". As I get more into things I will look at improvements.

davidgo
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I think that would work okay. I use a modified soil block recipe from Penn State extension for soil blocks, which was:

Ingredient Amount
Peat / Coir 8 qt.
Perlite 5 qt.
Compost 5 qt.
Garden Soil 2qt.
1-1-1 Fertilizer 1 cup
Worm Castings 1 cup

Things are growing in it like gangbusters. The perlite is there for density and aeration when I compress the block, so you could likely omit it in a potting mix.

As Ercnerwal said, you could be bringing in disease with coir from a hothouse. It can be sterilized by 30 minutes at 150°F/66°C.

Have you tried it? How did it go?

MackM
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  • Nothing to compare it to (im new to this) but filling my raised beds with coir and mixing in a layer of compost (1 bag per 1.25sqm) in the top few inches resulted in very happy looking curcubits and marigolds. Enough so that Im repeating tjis with another bed (or 2 if I can scrape together the wood) – davidgo Mar 12 '24 at 18:52
  • @davidgo That's funny, I have some curcubits (luffa) growing in my soil blocks now. Glad yours are growing well too. – MackM Mar 12 '24 at 19:10