Since I got my TDS meter, I started flushing out pots with distilled water.
Many pots were showing initial TDS readings of 50-80 ppm in the initial flushout water. I kept flushing until the reading was below 35 ppm.
Some new soil I mixed is troublesome. Many plants have not done well in it, and a few have died.
When I checked the TDS reading from these pots, it was ~200 ppm!
These pots were filled with peat that (for the first time) I had rinsed well (with rainwater), and mixed with sandbox sand. It took a long time for the readings to drop, and once they did, I found if i rinsed a day later, the readings were very high, again.
What's the deal? Maybe the sand is not pure quartz, and is leaching in the acidic peat?
Many pots were showing initial TDS readings of 50-80 ppm in the initial flushout water. I kept flushing until the reading was below 35 ppm.
Some new soil I mixed is troublesome. Many plants have not done well in it, and a few have died.
When I checked the TDS reading from these pots, it was ~200 ppm!
These pots were filled with peat that (for the first time) I had rinsed well (with rainwater), and mixed with sandbox sand. It took a long time for the readings to drop, and once they did, I found if i rinsed a day later, the readings were very high, again.
What's the deal? Maybe the sand is not pure quartz, and is leaching in the acidic peat?
