You are welcome, Misty. Have a great gardening season. 🙂

Excellent, thank you so much for your help! So far,just with the freshly made Mel’s Mix (I just moved so this is the first year establishing my new garden), all of my cold weather crops are thriving but I can see additional compost will be necessary.with each rotation and year over year. Can’t wait to get the rest of the summer seedlings in later this week!

When I built my square foot gardens, vermiculite was really difficult to find. I drove to several local garden centers and finally found it at Paris Farmers Union. As far as the compost in Mel’s Mix. He does recommend sourcing as many sources as you can, but that is difficult sometimes. I settled for a fish and farm blend combined with my own home compost. I planned on supplementing nutrients with some fish emulsion if the plants showed a deficiency. It wasn’t necessary for the first year. You will need to add additional compost each year. Espoma carries a line of soil amendment products that can be found at garden centers and big box stores. Also consider fedcoseeds.com for soil amendments.

That’s great – I’ll try some of the locals, we have an Estabrooks in Kennebunk. I had trouble finding vermiculite initially and ordered that online in fairly large quantity to set up my raised bed soil (Mel’s Mix). Also ended up ordering worm castings online and never did find a feasible way to get my hands on mushroom compost. I did differential my compost by adding some Benson’s Farm surf and turf found at Wallingford Farms. One of my favorite Youtuber’s also suggested micorizae, kelp meal and rock dust (azomite or other combinations)… I did purchase the micorizae and am using with my transplants but I had not seen it or the other items locally anywhere… have you used anything similar?

Hi Misty, I purchase a lot of my basic gardening supplies at our local Paris Farmers Union or Blue Seal stores. They have a full line of garden supplies and carry some Maine sourced products. Also consider locally owned hardware stores. Any of these places would be happy to order products for you too. Also consider Skillens, Estabrooks, and O’Donals nurseries. What type of amendments are you looking for?