Plants in pots (outdoors)

Cat litter contains urine.
Builder's sand is from the coast and contains salt. No good.

My Gerbil litter rots down in 3 months, makes more compost, with old potting soil, Horticultural Sand, Fish, blood and bone granules produces excellent results.
I am saving it in large bags under my greenhouse staging, it will be ready to use in April.
Bubble & Squeak busy chewing cardboard into tiny pieces even in the middle of winter. Cost miminal, just clear out the litter once a week and clean the inside of the old fish tank with a disinfectant wipe. Easy.

Half baked clay granule cat litter does NOT rot down. New cat litter contains NO urine (I didn't think anyone would be foolish enough to use used cat litter). The clue was in the part saying its slightly perfumed. Used cat litter is repugnant and foul smelling and doesn't cost £10ish per sack, but if you want your garden to smell like a council estate tower block stairwell, go ahead and use used cat litter ^_-

And yes, I did omit to say wash ALL sand, grit, gravel before using, but then again I did write the blog at 04:15.

Peace n love people ^_-

This is very interesting.
Could you expand on why your method is better than bought compost?

For the sake of this article I will be refering to soil, potting compost and organic growing mediums as 'soil'.

I wouldn't say my method is better just that I have had excellent results with this method.

Over the years I've noticed plants in pots do well for one to two years then they start to lose vigor, look weedy, tired and slowly die. Very often this is due to 'soil' being compacted and it doesn't take long for this to happen.
For a plant to grow well it needs 4 main things
*support
*water
*food
*air
Compacted 'soils' create problems such as water not penetrating the 'soil'. Water pooling on the surface and running between the inside of the pot and the compacted 'soil' (especially so with dry 'soil'). Feed cannot penetrate the 'soil'. Diluted liquid feed on dry 'soil' can damage roots. Soak 'soil' before feeding (this is so for any type of growing medium). Air cannot penetrate compacted soil.

All of the above stresses plants and leaves them suseptable to pests and diseases.

Half Baked non clumping clay cat litter are small irregular shaped granules that are very absorbent. The granules do not expand or contract are quite frost resistant with very little loss due to frost damage. Microscopically each granule absorbs moisture in its sponge like surface and structure and as each granule lies next to another it touches but also creates tiny air gaps and pathways. Cat litter is non toxic and inert, so no bugs or unwanted seeds in your mixture.

Cat litter offers the plants support (I have one tree that is 2' tall, 1" thick trunk and a canopy spread of about 2'. The round plastic pot is 18" diameter by 3 1/2" tall. Tree has been in there for 2 years and needed extra support for the first 3 months. Initially the root ball was reduced to 6" across and 2 1/2" deep so it was very top heavy, hence the extra support).
Watering is so easy using a watering can with a rose end.
The cat litter is so absorbent when you first wash it before use that you can hear it hiss as it soaks up water. Cat litter doesn't expand when wet nor does it contract when dry.
It only holds what it can and the rest FLOWS out of the drainage holes.
Diluted feeds easily reach all parts of the pot therefore the plant too.
The open structure of the cat litter allows plenty of air to circulate the roots.

One more thing folks, before anyone points it out, yes, I know this is hydroponics. But seriously if I'd titled this blog Hydroponic growing in your garden an awfuly lot of people would see the title and think, "Hydroponics...nah! too complicated for me".
Well let me tell you something. This blog is written by the worlds laziest gardener who always looks for the easy way and if I can do it so can you.

Peace n love ^_-
StJ

I mix my own I find the shop compost much to soggy when wet. I like your recipie and can see how it helps especially with drainage. Vermiculite in my mix is this years experiment usually use sand but it is sooo heavy. Love experimenting...

When I first heard about cat litter I was very sceptical, so much so that I waited 2 years before I tried it. Of course I used it on a sickley looking specimem that I was resigned to lose.
Three months later I had a healthy plant, lots of good fine roots, lots of new healthy growth. Now whenever I repot a bonsai I use cat litter.

Or there's this tale. One day while out at a restaurant I noticed a display of large Pine cones... so rummage rummage, prize, poke and got some. Four seeds from the largest cone. Months later I remembered the seeds, removed them from the fridge and planted two of them in damp cat litter. Months pass before I noticed two tiny seedlings poking through. 1 month later I gave them their first feed of Half strength liquid feed. They've been in the same pot for three years and will soon get their first root pruning. At present they stand about 6" tall.

They need more growth before I can correctly I.D. them. All I know is they are some kind of Pine. Stone Pine I think but not sure yet.

All this information should be passed to Bonsai Societies.

A lot of them already know, Diane, like I said, it's an open bonsai secret.

I've grown cacti and chillies as well as bonsai using cat litter as the only growing medium in the pot.

i've germinated various seeds and struck softwood, semi ripe, and hardwood cuttings in cat litter.

If anyone has large pots that they frequently move, they know how heavy they are. Using cat litter as a growing madium will reduce the weight of said pots by at least 1/3, especially if they wait until just before plant needs watering.

As an owner of cats that are spoilt and love life indoors through the winter, I do use a lot of catlitter, never would occur to me to try it for any of my plants/cacti, the only downside to this and yes I did learn the hardway is for goodness sake do not dispose of any spare or used catlitter on the garden,especially the expensive one that guarantees odourless, unless its an area put aside to train and encourage the cat to use one spot for them and leave the rest for you and your plants, these days some types are friendly to our gardens and made of eco friendly stuff, one can even add to ones compost, (obviously not without using the scoop to separate the nasty part first) many years ago I did a daft thing and emptied a littertray on the garden during one particularly bad winter, the binmen weren't getting around regularly and in those days we didn't have the huge wheelie bins, it was so good it literally sucked all the moisture out of the earth, I kid you not it took many years of adding homegrown compost to that area before I could successfully use that spot again...Very interesting blog StJohn, thankyou....

Thanks Lincslass, not having a cat myself I'd never thought about the downside of throwing out used litter with the nasties removed. But yeah, in hindsight I can see it would steal moisture from surrounding soil.
On a positive note, cat litter is also good for soaking up oil spills and chemical spills.
. . . And even blood (there's a handy tip for any homocidal axe wielding psychopaths out there).

What kind of feeding schedule do you use Stjohn? Clearly you'll have to start feeding before you would with commercial potting compost.

I was feeding once every two weeks, however in the last few days I've read some more interesting views from an expert about feeding (he uses the same growing medium as I) so I'm going to follow his advice.
Its easier if you visit his web page as the advice is quite extensive and very informative.
www.bonsai4me.com