Maintain Good Soil with Stalite PermaTill

Plants perform best in soils that contain pore spaces that allow water, air and roots to move freely deep into the soil. Here at Microfarm, we use an organic soil blend that creates this ideal environment. It’s a simple mix of 1/3 pine bark fines, 1/3 mushroom compost, and 1/3 Stalite PermaTill.

Never heard of PermaTill?

It’s a mineral product that helps maintain light, loam soils in horticultural applications. It can be easily added to a new soil mix to ensure proper consistency, or worked into an existing hardened soil to prevent it from ever becoming compacted again. PermaTill is made in the SouthEast, and has a much smaller carbon footprint than Perlite- another highly effective mineral product that is often mined in far corners of the globe.

PermaTill is especially useful for the Charlotte area’s heavy clay soils

It’s is made by simply heating tiny pieces of slate in a rotary kiln. This process expands the slate pieces into an extremely lightweight aggregate that is porous, sterile and inert.

Many bulk soil blends, like the Garden Blend with PermaTill sold by Atlantic Landscape Supplies, for example, contains about 15% PermaTill.

For most edible garden applications, especially raised beds, we recommend the soil contain about 30% PermaTill. This one time application will prevent the soil from ever becoming compacted. It can be purchased separately by the cubic yard, and blended with the soil before delivery.

Permatill is a media that is also commonly used in green roofs, rain gardens, and aquaponics applications.

Has your garden’s soil become compacted? Want to make sure the soil in your new raised beds never becomes compacted?

Consider Stalite PermaTill…. A locally made,  proven horticultural product that you’ll only need to buy once.