Hi Kylie, congrats on the willy wagtail babies!! A huge butcher bird keeps
eating mine...very sad. As for potting mix, the only stuff I've had any luck
with (I even use it for Bonsai plus other stuff of course) is spent mushroom
compost; a bag from Big W is about $8 I think? My modern potting mix is
horrible and won't grow a thing either. Give the mushroom stuff a go. Did
you manage to get hold of my dad?


"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
hello,
my first gripe - modern potting mix just seems to be useless!! stuff does
not grow in it properly!! (i fully expect my one potted tomato to drop
dead shortly. it's perfectly healthy for now, but with my new set against
Modern Potting Mix, it surely cannot last!!)

my second gripe is that my last batch had mites in it(!!) i was having a
bit of a bad day so i used it anyway, but the cuttings died & when i
pulled them out there were maggoty things in there. (baby mites, i'm
assuming.) now i don't know what to do about the rest of it. i don't want
to spread mites. if i cook it in the oven, will the mix still be any use
afterwards? should i cook it in the oven (or pour boiling water on it) &
just dump it & try the other bag instead? (which, being Modern Potting
Mix, won't be any use either whether it has mites or not g. ) or are
mites quite all right in small quantities in a garden?

on the bright side (i've finished griping now ;-) we have two loquat (i
believe) trees, which we've essentially ignored. today i realised one has
some ripe fruit! we ate one - it was fabulous!! so now i feel rather silly
that i never even watered the poor things - not even once - we might have
had more fruit (it only had 5 - ahem). the only, i might add, fruit we'll
probably get from any of our trees this season, as the frost killed off
all the peaches, apples, etc. next year i am going to do my best to ensure
loquats a go go, they're fantastic (and apparently frost proof). and
furthermore, our second crop of willy wagtail babies has just been born
(in the aforementioned loquat tree - it might not have many fruits, but is
producing baby willy wagtails quite well g. you'd think with all my
willy wagtail watching, i'd have noticed a few fruits before now, wouldn't
you?)
kylie