Lava rock purchase

CWTurner

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I have been using stone dust as a component of my soil and needed to upgrade to some good lava.

From this post, https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/lower-ny-lava.19185/ , I found out about Partek Peat Corporation in Great Meadows NJ.
beam.png
This company's main products are for baseball fields and other clay courts. Looking through their website, it appears they use lava dust on their baseball warning track product. So I suppose they grind the lava up for that purpose and somehow found a market for a 1/4" graded lava.

Anyway, last month I decided to make the 2 hour trip. This is a lovely, rural and hilly area of N.J. The lava looked like nice stuff and the price was just $10.25 per 50 lb. bag! I even shared some of this with @Microscopic when I got home.

Yesterday, I sifted it out and I am very impressed. Here's what I ended up with:
Partekpeat_lava.jpg
> 1/4" about 3/4 of the bag
< 1/4" about 1/4 of the bag

If I was looking for 3/16" to 3/8" particle size I wouldn't even have had to sift.
Best of all, there was only about 1 cup of fines, and virtually no dust! (guess they save that for the warning track)

There are a couple shades of red in there, and a bit of charcoal color. I highly recommend this product if you're within driving distance.

On a whim, I also purchased one bag of their Pro's Choice Select Pro Red which looks to be a red clay colored DE granule similar to NAPA 8822. I'll see how that weathers before using it in my mixes.


CW
 
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CarsonH

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I had two trees come in with little knowledge about soil. I started looking around and found that Utah is a very hard place to find Lava and Pumice. Hess Pumice company is in Idaho, but for Lava I think this NJ place will have to do even with shipping. Right now for my soil i have the following compounds.

For the base I have Vigoro Pea Pebbles

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-0-5-cu-ft-Pea-Pebbles-54255/202523000
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Utelite Soil Conditioner

http://www.steveregan.com/SOIL-UTELITE-CONDITIONER-EA-72-PER-PALLET.html
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Crushed (but not small) Lava Rock for the first layer to keep all of the smaller items in the 14x14x5 Anderson Flats i use to grow
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And last but not least some organic compost with some sand to make it not clumpy.
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Ill get some lava and add it to the mix next time I pot stuff.

I am also very open to suggestions or healthy criticisms.

Image-2.png
 

CWTurner

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Good Man!
Well, by "shared" I mean that I let him buy some from me. At least I sold it to him a cost.

I started looking around and found that Utah is a very hard place to find Lava and Pumice.
CasonH, I am pretty sure that the west coast is where this originates. You should be able to find it somewhere closer than NJ

BTW, I just last week drove cross country with my son and left him in Ogden (Syracuse, actually) where he started his first post-graduation job.

Oh, and @sorce this time I did stop at "R" Place. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/road-trip-philly-to-utah.23549/

CW
 

sorce

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Oh, and @sorce this time

Nice! I was right by there two weeks ago!

Did you like it?

Been a while since I been, but that's the kind of place that doesn't change. Yet!

Sorce
 

CWTurner

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Did you like it?
It was an interesting place. Liked the decor more than the food, though my (recommended) burger was fine. Had a hard time figuring out where the hell the restaurant entrance was though.
CW
 

Soldano666

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I have been using stone dust as a component of my soil and needed to upgrade to some good lava.

From this post, https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/lower-ny-lava.19185/ , I found out about Partek Peat Corporation in Great Meadows NJ.
View attachment 133028
This company's main products are for baseball fields and other clay courts. Looking through their website, it appears they use lava dust on their baseball warning track product. So I suppose they grind the lava up for that purpose and somehow found a market for a 1/4" graded lava.

Anyway, last month I decided to make the 2 hour trip. This is a lovely, rural and hilly area of N.J. The lava looked like nice stuff and the price was just $10.25 per 50 lb. bag! I even shared some of this with @Microscopic when I got home.

Yesterday, I sifted it out and I am very impressed. Here's what I ended up with:
View attachment 133029
> 1/4" about 3/4 of the bag
< 1/4" about 1/4 of the bag

If I was looking for 3/16" to 3/8" particle size I wouldn't even have had to sift.
Best of all, there was only about 1 cup of fines, and virtually no dust! (guess they save that for the warning track)

There are a couple shades of red in there, and a bit of charcoal color. I highly recommend this product if you're within driving distance.

On a whim, I also purchased one bag of their Pro's Choice Select Pro Red which looks to be a red clay colored DE granule similar to NAPA 8822. I'll see how that weathers before using it in my mixes.


CW
I'm going to have to remember to hit them up. I'll be down thru sometime early summer. Thanks.ks for the heads up. I've been paying $25 for a flat rate box full
 

_#1_

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Definitely thanks for the heads ups and help with getting me 3 bags @CWTurner!

The bag I opened up has very consistent size. Didn't even have to sift (or lazy). I also got 2 5gal boxes of pumice on Amazon.com and sizes on those are all over the place lol.

I'll snap a pic of the bag and box side by side.

Great find man!
 

CarsonH

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Do you wash/sift your soil before potting? Looks like lots of fines in there.
CW

The Small particles are from utelite, organic compost, and sand. That photo was taken right after I got it all potted up. After its first watering all of that stuff ran out the bottom and collected on the cement. I washed the Pea Gravel and got a lot of dust off of it. I sifted most of the Utelite but some fine stuff did make its way through. The first layer on the bottom is all Lava rock, figured I needed it to help keep the Pea gravel from going through the bottom of the flat.
 

CWTurner

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I'm going to have to remember to hit them up. I'll be down thru sometime early summer. Thanks.ks for the heads up. I've been paying $25 for a flat rate box full
Yeah, well call them first. I don't know how often they resupply, but when I was there I bought 8 bags and I think they only had 10-12 total.
CW
 
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