Wow, that’s a bit defensive. If you told me you got great fruit without spray I’d be interested, I wouldn’t feel you were trying to tell me how to grow anything. I merely was curious about how you deduced your statement- now I know. Thanks for the clarification.
Your method of starting plants is in a greenhouse where disease pressure is likely to be much higher than in the south windows of my house because of extremely high humidity. My house is very dry in the winter. By the time I move my tomatoes and peppers into the green house they are already strong little plants, although I’ve often started other plants in there and probably occasionally used wet potting soil that has been sitting a very long time- outdoors. I never sterilize old trays that may have some wet potting soil on them and damping off has never been a problem for me for most vegetables. Sometimes some things will rot but not enough to matter much. My potting soil is left outside and is often frozen when I need to start my tomato and pepper plants, like bricks of ice. I bring it indoors to thaw it more often than starting with dry mix…
I’ve been starting plants for over half a century for my own vegetable gardens and to give away, I probably could tell you something about starting them, just as you could tell me something new about growing apples if you’ve done it a long time. This stuff is very variable and complicated and you or I will never truly master any of it, IMO.
That said, I don’t have any experience starting thousands of plants in a large greenhouse, I usually only start less than a 100 of any given species, like most of the people on this forum seeking advice. If I was starting plants commercially I’d probably be more careful.
There are all kinds of expertise and experience. Most of the people here are not growing fruit commercially but often teach me something new, because we all have different experiences and ways of doing things.
Here I thought I played that very low key. It was not intended to be defensive. I don’t want you to do things my way. I much prefer people to try things out and learn on their own what works best.
I will add something that is perhaps more informative than all the other things I can say. Each year, I ship a couple of boxes of plants to people who started their own and for one reason or another their plants died. Among other causes, the cat dug them up, a mouse ate them in the carport, I forgot to water them, I over-watered them, and a few others, the most prevalent is the person who needs replacement plants because they over-watered. The second most prevalent is the person who used old been-damp-all-winter seed start mix or just plain old potting soil that was loaded with phytothora. Their plants were damped off or maybe killed as growing seedlings.
The very best advice I can give anyone starting seedlings next spring is to start with new fresh sterile seed start mix. Promix is steam sterilized. Moisten promix and leave it setting over winter and it is no longer sterile. The next good advice is to always grow tomato and pepper seedlings a bit on the dry side. Over-watering is deadly to them. The rest of it is common sense, don’t over-fertilize, do give them plenty of light, and keep an eye on the temperature they grow at. Look up “Thigmomorphogenesis” to find out why tomatoes and peppers are “touch me, I like it” plants.
Fusion, I don’t see anything wrong with what you replied. Anyway good reading to me.
Yesterday, I finally got all my 22 purchased fertilizers bought. Last one was a gl container of micro,s. I need a lot of this stuff.
I’m surprised at your response because you suggested that my asking what your opinion was derived from was like telling you how you should start tomato plants, if I turned it around a bit. I think that is defensive. I was unaware of the extent in which you’ve been engaged in growing starter plants and with a community of people that you protect from plant losses because if you mentioned that earlier I didn’t read it. And so you explained to me where your opinion or statement was derived from.
Now you’ve heard from someone who used exactly the same potting soil that you’ve warned people against with fine success, which to my mind should make you happy to hear something interesting and even possibly valuable to your overall understanding. I personally love the fact that horticulture is so variable an unpredictable. Why do you think I’ve never suffered any negative affects in spite of half a lifetime of ignoring sanitary issues in starting plants? Maybe where plants have failed there have been more than a single issue at play, for instance.
I would suggest to anyone interested in gardening or horticulture in general that they always take expert and inexpert advice with a grain of salt, and anyone that expresses absolute assurance of cause and affect is probably a bit over confident.
I’d say ‘cheap fertilizer’ is some
that doesn’t have a high analysis of desirable elements, or is damaged in some manner and you pay more than it’s worth…compared to some other product or some other brand.
BARGAIN FERTILIZER is good fertilizer at a price you can’t pass on if you are going to need fertilizer in some form in the nearer future.
What an observation, picky, picky you know full well what the post is all about.
I don’t buy cheap fertilizer, I should post more pictures of the stuff I buy, nothing low quality stuff. Thanks for the explanation, be more careful next time.
Alan, I try to be fair and considerate of others when posting. That especially applies to people who I know to have a lot of experience such as you. In this case, I’ve grown at least 2 million tomato and pepper seedlings over the last 40 years. For many years, I started 50,000 or more per year. I’m down to 20,000 to 30,000 per year in part because there are a lot of competing businesses and in part because that is about as many as I care to handle.
Along the way, I tried thousands of variations of ways to start seed and grow plants. A couple of times, I re-used promix that had been moist over winter. I won’t ever do it again for reasons stated above. You are welcome to start seedlings any way you choose using any media you like. I don’t have any say in that and don’t want it. However, others reading here will read what you and I wrote and some of them will think they can re-use seed start mix that is not sterile. I would rather they did not wind up calling me for plants therefore I recommend what I know for sure will work i.e. start with fresh sterile seed start mix.
I did it the hard way back in 2013 at request of a guy who wanted 20,000 seedlings all grown organically. I did not have a source of organic seed start mix so had to make up my own. Over the 6 months that I provided him with seedlings, I found just about everything possible to do wrong including using non-sterile soil mix. In 2013, I lost at least 10,000 seedlings due to this mistake. Fortunately, I had started an abundance of seed so was able to fulfill the contract even with horrendous losses. Please note that Promix is not an organically accepted seed start mix!
So what did I find worked? I mixed peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, worm castings, lime, and a small amount of bird guano and put it in a modified 55 gallon drum on top of a turkey fryer. 5 gallons of water in the bottom of the drum turned into steam which permeated the mix above a grate. The steam sterilized the mix and made it turn out wonderfully healthy seedlings. I did not need any additional fertilizer though could have added bird guano at any time if needed. I had to submit this mix for review and organic certification. If I could purchase this mix commercially, I would use it exclusively and toss the promix. As it is, I only mix up a drum every 2 or 3 years and use it for a few customers who prefer organic seedlings. I store it dry and sterile so I can continue to use it that long.
As above, you or anyone else can do what you want, but when it comes to growing seedlings and posting about how to do it on a public forum, I prefer to state what I know 100% works. Start with sterile seed start mix.
I expect anyone who reads what you wrote will not use last years wet pro-mix if you pay them, except me, because year after year I’ve done so without any issues- and you even have me a bit worried, but it’s not like we are discussing heart medicines. For you a failure of starts is a disaster, for me, the worst thing that could happen is I’d have to go to a nursery that specializes in starting a lot of interesting tomato varieties early and selling them in 2 gallon pots with green fruit already on them before it is even safe to put them in the ground.
The only time I’ve ever had a true disaster starting plants is when I got distracted when moving my pepper plants from my house to my “green house” (no heat besides heating pads). I left a tray of about 50 plants outside and a freezing night followed. That made me sad because there was no way I could buy replacements of the peppers I want to grow and they already had a month and a half of growth on them.
Isn’t it possible that just like in orchards, when you grow a larger quantity the risk of disease rises exponentially, because once it starts it spreads?
It really isn’t an issue of how many plants you start as far as gaining experience about what works for you, IMO. I’ve read for years about the importance of sanitation in greenhouses, but by then I’d already gotten away with being unsanitary for a very long time. Anyone who gets an idea about the expanse of my business- my nursery and all the orchards I mange, including my own, my expansive vegetable garden, is usually amazed that I can do so much with my 69 year old body and one full time helper.
The trick is to do only what’s necessary and you don’t find out what that is by being excessively cautious.
As they say, anything is possible. I will concede one point. Freezing promix over winter will pretty much stop anything from growing in it. I’m in a different climate so even if my promix freezes, it will thaw within a few days and whatever bad guys are in the mix will go back to multiplying. Why not try some seed in new fresh promix next spring and others in overwintered mix. Then you can say with some certainty whether or not your conditions favor one or the other.
On a positive note, we could have a really good discussion about peppers we love to grow. I highly recommend wildgardenseed for some unusual sweet peppers. You can even find one or two developed from hybrids I made for Fred Morton.
I bought enough fertilizer at 80% off in Oct. of last year to fertilize my apples in 22.
But, have to get some more acidic fertilizer…typically buy it in 6 or 8 pound sizes.
Unless there is a direct tax similar to the gas tax which increases a commodity price, I don’t see how you can “blame” a politician for a rising commodity price. In this case I blame aging port infrastructure causing increasing costs from backups on the container ships, and a myriad of other factors. Which, by the way, the new infrastructure bill does contain funding to improve port infrastructure.
Robert Reich has another explanation that might interest you, but this is a political discussion not suitable for this topic or forum in general (not your comment but BB’s and where I will take you in the PM). If you are interested in his article, PM me or search his name with the word inflation at the end.
Meanwhile, back to pertinent advice on where to get affordable fertilizer.
Similarly to the one show about how stuff is made which I think is fascinating to many people, I think that starting another thread about how materials for growing fruit is made wouldn’t be unreasonable. Obviously there could be some discussion about the economics of those items in that thread and I don’t see any harm in that.
@alan
I am somewhat familiar with Robert Reich. But, quite candidly, anybody that had classes with Hillary and worked for Bill, comes through as highly suspect, even if their economic theories are interesting.
Thanks for the mention, I’ll look at the pm next.
b.t.w. anybody that can author so many books has somebody doing most of it under his name.
*Also, yesterday’s “THE GURDIAN” had a fair-minded piece on the problems in America and on Robert Reich. You generally get a non-political point of view from the Press overseas…for they have no dog in the fight usually.
My budget for all my fertilizer use per year is rather small. As a hobby containing a bunch of trees, spending a lot of time studying fertilizers, I can safely say, growing healthy tree’s, finest fertilizer for them , cheap budget.
Just got my final fertilizer delivered. Tree’s like this stuff.
A winning combination.
FYI,
This new so called “infrastructure” bill contains a 14%
tax on all natural gas. It has NOTHING to do with port infrastructure.
Get your facts straight.
So what does a bill that passed this last week have to do with the rise in prices leading up to it? Let’s stop this political BS and stick to advice, please. Discussion of the politics related to the price of fertilizer is banned on this forum. Such arguments always derail into partisan based squabbling.
