What is perlite and how does it work?
Perlite is made of small pieces of extremely porous volcanic rock. If you look at is closely (microscopically) you’ll see that it looks like swiss cheese with (relatively) huge holes. When water is added, it is wicked into these pores of the perlite. This porous structure then serves to slowly evaporate the water back into the air. The huge surface area in the micropores of the perlite helps the water evaporate forming a vapor of tiny droplets which tend to stay well in the air, as opposed to the bubbler and humidifier methods which have large droplets which tend to condense. This evaporation process takes a while, which is perfect for our purposes, since we want to prolong the evaporating process as long as possible. Perlite can be purchased from most gardening supply stores. It’s generally kept in the same area as bags of dirt, manure, fertilizers etc. A small bag is about $5 and a large bag is about $20. Apparently perlite can also be purchased in automotive stores for use in helpin
