Big Pots For Vegetables

[Dirtmechanic]

This will be the year I find time to make raised beds and hypertufa pots I promise. I know I have some other cement and mortar projects that are very useful in requiring extra materials that can find their way into the garden setting. But I haz questions.

How much portland in a cement mix like hypertufa? Is adding lime like a mortar a good idea, or is the size of the sand if any used best? Is the sand sieve size a particular number?

 

[Zigs]

I just added some compost to some cement I had from cleaning out the mixer, think that was a 4 to mix using estuary sand <5mm

I wouldn't add lime if using Portland, it's either or

 

[Dirtmechanic]

The lime makes it soft? I thought lime is used to retain moisture and make it sticky for bricks but might have a more important usefulness in some way.

 

[Zigs]

Yep, it's sometimes used as a plasticizer to make the mortar more workable, and it helps it stick but it's not important as an additive when you're making cement pots.

Back in the old days (before they invented Portland) Mortar was simply one part Lime, 3 parts sand. This needed tending as it shrunk and dried out as it cured, so needed wetting up and compacting.

Once Portland cement was invented there was no need to add lime to mortar other than to make it workable, although this new fangled cement mix was too hard and inflexable for use on historic masonry so after a lot of damage had been done to historic buildings folk started to re learn the old ways and go back to using putty lime and hydraulic lime.

I spent most of my working life repairing historic buildings and the only time I remember using portland cement was on a church step where lime would have been too soft for all the foot traffic using it.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

Some of these materials I will be using are a premixed sand topping and an S grade mortar. I like them as they have no rocks and finish attractively. I do not much care for the institutonally grey color of the sand mix by itself so I thought I would mix the two and see if I can lighten the color. I need to refinish- recoat areas of a driveway. Sand mix worked well for many years as a patch but too much sand or something in the original pour has the natural water flow underneath popping out the surface in small holes that freeze-thaw into larger holes. Its a steep area that has some head pressure as a result. Reckon that lime will work for 10 years or so? Two different grades of sand, a little lime relative to the mass etc seems less risky than I first thought for a driveway resurfacer. Its only four or five hundred feet long so it won't take too long right?

Anyway I have collected a variety of mold shapes for pots. My wife wants to know why I have metal frames for barstools with no seat. or her old baskets. I think the shapes made with towels are cool. I also want to try the big pots where they are built up on a pile of sand either using a lazy susan spinning table or the mold knife that spins around from a central point.

I will be using straight portland and the usual components to build a base for a small generator house. Its just big enough to run our hvac system. Since we tend to have storms in the summer the heat and humidity become a brutality when the power is out. Modern construction materials with paper surfaces like sheetrock suffer mold if left exposed. Plus my wife would insist on evacuation. I had the area plumbed for gas fuel and electric connection so now its up to me to level a steep slope with a fireproof-resistant anyway structure so close to my home.