Hypertufa instructions from Rosie

Hypertufa
Always wear gloves when working with Hypertufa!
A hard mix is 1/1/1 by volume of Portland cement, peat moss, and sand. Increasing sand or peat makes the mix progressively softer and weaker and more porous. Some Hypertufa recipes call for perlite instead of sand - I was taught to use sand - he said it made a stronger pot.
We used 3 small buckets of Portland Cement, 3 small buckets of Sphagnum Peat Moss, and 3 small buckets of sand. Remove any large twiggy pieces from the peat moss.
The fibers we used were from Transit Mix - they’re called Monofilament Fibers. Use 2 hands full of the fibers - rub them in your hands to separate the fibers - then rub them into the peat and sand mix.
We mixed the peat and sand - then - added the fibers. Cement was added last. Use your hands to mix the cement, peat moss, sand, and fibers together. You want everything to be mixed well and the fibers evenly distributed through the mix.
Water depends on whether sand or peat are moist to begin with. Add and mix slowly and thoroughly until mixture will stay in a ball with only slight water squeezed out when squeezed in hand. Mixture can be moister if supported from all sides in the mold.
Molds MUST be sprayed with kitchen spray before using. ALWAYS make drainage holes in the bottom of the pot/trough.
Let the pot/trough sit in their molds for a week (I let the last batch I made sit for 5 days and unmolded carefully - then I let them sit a couple more days before I turned them over) - larger troughs can take longer (if you unmold too early, the pot/trough can break). Wire brush to remove unwanted material and finish edges.
After unmolding, the pots/troughs need to sit for a total of 28 days to harden. After 28 days the pots need to be watered regularly to leach out the lime from the concrete.