Pumice suppliers - soil improvement

Icstanton

Hello

I have recently started enriching my soil with pumice to help with aeration and to allow bacteria and funghi to develop. However, I am struggling to find an economical supplier. The cheapest I can find is Soil Ninja, who sell 10L for £19. But that's a bit pricey for anything other than a small patch of soil. Is anyone aware of anywhere that sells it in greater quantities? More like 50-100L. 

Posy

Much much better to dig in muck - well rotted stable or barn waste - and coarse grit. Cheap and easy to get, too.

Fire

Pumpice/perlite is more commonly used (in the UK) in small quanitities for seed growing or for house plants. For outside beds amendments offered are usually manure or home made compost or similar. [In the UK] if you encourage earth worms numbers in the soil they aerate and enrich the soil with their poo.

Both pumice and perlite are volanic rock and are expensive to process and ship. It's often most economical to take advantage of growing resources that are created close to hand - like wood chip and animal poo - which is usually free or cheap. If you are living on an Hawaiian island, the entire proposition would be different.

TheVanguard

Perlite from eBay is about 25 for 100l a bag lasts me well over a year. Not sure if it’s gone up recently 

Fire

Is that for growing seedlings?

Icstanton

I'm not using the pumice for seedlings. Just to open up my soil and encourage bacteria and funghi. Thank you for the alternative suggestions. I am aware of all those. But I've done a lot of research on soil improvement, and my current interest is with trying pumice. (I'm also using home made compost, well- rotted manure, home produced worm castings, leaf mould and ground volcanic rock)

Dovefromabove

Looks like you’re getting a pretty good price for small quantities. Larger quantities available here … I’ll leave you to do the sums 

https://www.specialistaggregates.com/pumice-horticultural-gravel-p-6161.html

MikeOxgreen

Icstanton said:

I'm not using the pumice for seedlings. Just to open up my soil and encourage bacteria and funghi. Thank you for the alternative suggestions. I am aware of all those. But I've done a lot of research on soil improvement, and my current interest is with trying pumice. (I'm also using home made compost, well- rotted manure, home produced worm castings, leaf mould and ground volcanic rock)

Out of interest why? 

Icstanton

MikeOxgreen said:

Icstanton said:

I'm not using the pumice for seedlings. Just to open up my soil and encourage bacteria and funghi. Thank you for the alternative suggestions. I am aware of all those. But I've done a lot of research on soil improvement, and my current interest is with trying pumice. (I'm also using home made compost, well- rotted manure, home produced worm castings, leaf mould and ground volcanic rock)

Out of interest why? 

Why not? It's something that I have seen advocated. It makes sense to me why it would be a good idea, so it's fun to try. 

MikeOxgreen

Icstanton said:

MikeOxgreen said:

Icstanton said:

I'm not using the pumice for seedlings. Just to open up my soil and encourage bacteria and funghi. Thank you for the alternative suggestions. I am aware of all those. But I've done a lot of research on soil improvement, and my current interest is with trying pumice. (I'm also using home made compost, well- rotted manure, home produced worm castings, leaf mould and ground volcanic rock)

Out of interest why? 

Why not? It's something that I have seen advocated. It makes sense to me why it would be a good idea, so it's fun to try. 

That doesn't answer the question though does it.
I'm asking why purely out of interest as I thought you were making special compost for some niche reason, but it seems not.
To answer your question: Because it's expensive and not needed.

Icstanton

Hi Mike, I'm doing it because I believe that it will aide, in combination with other things, in providing a healthy environment for bacteria and funghi to flourish.