Coconut coir growing medium comes from the coconut's fibrous husk (known as coir) that is bound together by lignin (known as pith). After the husk is immersed in water for 6 weeks, the fiber is extracted mechanically, and the pith is left behind as a waste product and stored in heaps to age. Since the pith comes from the fruit, it is quite naturally rich in nutrients.
Coconut coir growing mediums are dehydrated and compressed into a compact form for easy handling. With the addition of water, coir expands to an easy to work with growing medium.
Now that we offer 3 different sizes of compressed Coconut Coir Bricks, I want to share a comparison.
From left to right: Coconut Coir brick, BULK Coconut Coir Brick then XL Coconut Coir Brick.
It's also important to understand how much volume each of these bricks can yield. Each of these compressed coconut coir bricks can expand 3 to 9 times their size. But that's a broad range. To help you decide which brick you might need for a particular project or planting, I have re-hydrated them.
COCONUT COIR BRICK yield was approx 1 gallon from a single brick. This is a 10x10 microgreens tray.
BULK COCONUT COIR BRICK yield was approx 2.5 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket from a single brick.
XL COCONUT COIR BRICK yield was approx 19 gallons. This is a 17 gallon tote and I had to remove some of the coir while it was expanding. This is the best value in my opinion.
Here's the new video I made to show the actual yield of each coconut coir brick
As I mentioned, the XL Coconut Cir brick is the best value. I used less than 1 full XL Coconut Coir Brick to "fix" a 4 foot by 8 foot bed when the soil became compacted.
The extra can be stored in a tote of bucket for later use. I try not to store it for a long time so that the bugs don't take over or bacteria starts to build.
Have you used coconut coir for seed starting? It's an easy to use growing medium. As I've mentioned in previous videos, it can dry out faster than other seed starting mediums so as long as you keep an eye on the moisture, it works great.
I also use coconut coir for cold stratification in the refrigerator.
Here's the the XL Coconut Coir Brick I used when I fixed my raised beds in my how-to video Fixing Compacted Soil.
