Coconut Coir

I've gone on a lot about coconut coir in a lot of my posts - when I first starting using it it was primarily as an addition to my worm composting. I used it as bedding to start out a tray, or put a layer over the top of newly added scraps as a 'seal' against flies or other unwanted pests.
I got a brick with my worm farm, and had already read up on it as a cheaper and renewable alternative to peat moss or sphagnum moss.
Now I use it as a soil additive to improve drainage, soil density, and water retention. I used it as a primary ingredient in my 'potato soil' - the other parts were potting soil and worm castings.
When I get started on the raised wicking bed (making an entire 4x4 garden bed based on the principles of self watering pots) it will play a major part in ensuring the capillary action of the water.
When I started my first worm bin last year in February I bought 10 blocks online for around 2 dollars each (plus I think 6 dollars in shipping) - and I'm down to my last couple of blocks now. 25 dollars well spent, this year I'll be looking into getting double that.

So seeing how it's now a big part of what I'm doing (and I need more very soon) I should show you what it is, how to get it, and how to use it.

In my last post on harvesting the worm bin, if you look carefully at the equipment you can see a brown block near the small containers.. That's a block of coir.

650 gram block of coir

 On 650 gram block, all sealed in plastic and ready to go - it takes up hardly ANY space, and when you add water it expands to more than 7 times it's original size.
Anyone wondering where I get those robust yellow buckets, they're the buckets I get kitty litter in. They've outlasted any other bucket I buy, and I use them for EVERYTHING.  So if the cat is going to be a complete pain in my balls - the very least it can do is supply me with buckets.
Anyways, a picture is worth a thousand words - so here's how it works:

A gallon and half-ish of water, put the brick in.

1 minute later - the block is expanding

At 3 minutes

10 minutes

Give it a hand stir at 20 - 25 minutes.

The camera angle isn't the best - but it fills that bucket up to around 3/4 full from one brick. About what you'd expect to get out of an average size sized bag of peat moss, and at a fraction of the cost.

From here you can use to for anything you'd use peat moss for.  Making a hard soil fluffier, adding to drainage, anything.

Buying Coir

When I first went to buy some I had a hard time tracking it down locally, and when I did it wasn't priced very well. Getting it online worked out really well, but you have to shop around. Google Shopping is your friend here, it will show you a list of product and you can select price range, then you can see who is selling it for what.  There are some things to watch out for - some people set very low prices then double down on the shipping, and if you're not careful you can be paying a LOT more than you bargained for. People are taking advantage of it's growing popularity and trying to make a quick buck of those in green movement.
Me, I'm in the 'cheap ass' movement, so I do my homework.  I'm looking to spend 50 bucks, and I want to get double what I bought for 25 when I started.  This is going to include shipping.
Finding it on google shops at a 2 dollar a block price is easy - but as you see 2 dollars isn't always 2 dollars! 
What I did was go through both products and vendors, one at a time, and see how far I could drive that shipping dollar. Some companies really try and screw you by saying that shipping fee is per block - others don't.   Wayfair  was actually quite reasonable.  Running the numbers on a test run through their checkout shows that the 4.99 shipping is on ANY amount, and as a bonus they have free shipping on orders of $49 or more.... Well I said I wanted to spend 50 buck - which gives me 25 blocks, delivered via fedex ground shipping for a grand total of 49.75.  A quarter under my budget.

Things like that are easy to find and work out if you put a little time and effort in.  Google shopping, Amazon, Craigslist, Freecycle (if you have a chapter local to you - the one here is practically inactive) , sometimes even Ebay, are all your friends if you want to drive your garden budget dollar as far as you can.

Cheers!