one rinse may not be enough, I always do mine twice now after killing some plants with just a single overnight soak. Often it will have salt and stuff mixed in from ocean water I suppose.
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Yeah it said it was rinsed, but maybe not enough. OK though, that is already too much work.
Right now, I need to spend between 30-60 minutes a day on my plants. I need ways to cut time as much as possible. The spring is the busiest time too. Having said that, I don’t think that was it, but maybe? All sprouted good, they just kind of sat there and were slow to form true leaves. I planted tomato seeds 14 days ago and they are all up in the pro-mix, some have true leaves already too. On the right is some Zinnias. I grow them every year too for my flower garden.
My peppers were just up potted. Now in my custom mix. It is old recycled mix till i can buy new raw materials to make more, I’m out. Been busy and broke too. Some of those unexpected expenses came up. So it will have to do this year. i will place them in new soil when in there final home. I grow in containers, and in ground. Lot’s in ground this year! I rotate my beds, next year they get the smaller beds. (this is only some, I have about 25 this year, I will give some away).
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I don’t know that I’ll ever use straight coir but it is an ingredient in the ProMix and my seeds and seedlings do fantastic in the ProMix. I got spoiled when I got the end of season ProMix and now I want more for same price!!!
Katy
PS. Your seedlings look great!!
The stuff I buy is peat based, the general purpose mix, it’s much cheaper. I have a hard time paying this much (about 10 bucks for a bale). Let alone the other mixes. This general mix is the most expensive ingredient in my custom blend. I always save some for seeds. I use about 3 bales a year and it is only 1/5 of my potting mix (1/5 compost, 3/5 pine, plus 1/15 DE.).
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I use 10 to 12 bales of promix BX per year. This is the large bales, not the small 2 cu ft.
One year I ordered promix from a local guy who got it for $25 a bale. When delivered, it turned out he got Promix MPX. I found out that MPX works better for seedlings than BX. It is ground to finer texture which makes handling seedlings easier.
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I use it straight, no rinsing and no problems, I do 600 plus seedlings a season. Maybe it is the brand I get?
ETA I do plug production so the seedlings are potted up after about 3 weeks, I do not grow on in the straight coir, just start the seeds.
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Well now is the time I’m planting out and up potting, so time to make my custom mix. I saw some cocoa shells at the nursery and decided to try them in my mix. I use 3 parts pine bark, so i cut it to two, and added one part cocoa shells. Wow, I’m liking the drainage and uniformity of the mix. Last year’s mix got very dense on me. The pine bark fines were well composted and didn’t hold up at all, turned to compost. This year I scored some perfect sized ones, not composted as much, and the mixes are coming out killer. 2 parts pine bark, 1 part compost, 1 part Pro-mix general purpose (peat based), 1 part cocoa shells, and 1/3 part diatomaceous earth the size of perlite (Optisorb).
See how it does this year, sticking to it, smells good too. Cocoa shells are poisonous to dogs, but my dog sniffed it and had no interest. A squirrel did puncture the bag and ate some, which is fine with me!
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I have a soil test pending on my year old homemade mix of about 2/3 compost, 25%peat moss and 5% Optisorb.
I regularly watered about 5g per week of Urea fertilizer well diluted into each 20 gallon container all during the off-season. I figured I had to do something to keep the microbes on the job.
The Diatomaceous earth seems to have done a good job of keeping everything friable, so far.
It will be interesting to see the results of the soil test; did the steady diet of N help in keeping the other nutrients up?
The thing about compost is that you never quite know what you have, plus, it’s a moving target as the decomposition continues.
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I didn’t mention how I feed the plants. And it varies depending on the plant. But most i treat the same. I use an organic, usually Garden Tone, but also Plant-tone, and Holly-tone. And I also use Dynamite slow release because most plants like a ratio of 3-1-2. Dynamite releases for 9 months has complete micro-nutrients and NPK of 15-5-9 which is ideal. I may hit them with Foliage Pro if I see they stall on growing. I like to use it on seedlings and it too has the ideal ratio and all mircos.
So at the beginning of the year I hit them with the dynamite and the first of each month with organic till August. So I stop feeding them after the August 1st feed. I have had some problems with figs not going dormant, so I’m cutting food off early at the end of the year. The soil should have some if needed from organic matter breaking down, and the compost.
As far as bacteria in the soil, I don’t worry about it as the Tones all have bacteria now.
I like to mulch with pine straw, but will use whatever I can get, pine bark, straw, shredded leaves, and now even cocoa shells if I have to dip into my soil mix supply. My son has a place in upper Michigan and he has nice soft pine needles I collect every year. When i can get up there. I only have half a bag left. I need to go up!
I made some mix using 2cf cocoa hulls, 6cf small pine bark nuggets and 2cf Promix and it turned out pretty good. This is meant to be a large container mix, not for seed starting or anything. I also added water crystals, osmocote plus and some organic amendments… I mixed it, wet it down, let it ‘cook’ for a couple weeks in a pile, mixed it again and potted my plants up. When I mixed it the second time there was very obvious fungal growth going on in the mix and it had dried out some, added more water at that time. So far plants seem happy with it…
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I add DE perlite sized (Optisorb) to absorb water and release when needed. it holds 120% of it’s weight, more than pumice, turface, or bonsai clay. Also it will not break down. And yes most of mine goes in 10, 20, and 30 gallon containers. Yours sounds like a good mix too. It’s hard to get pine bark nuggets here that don’t cost as much as gold. I use a finer grade, but this year it’s fresh and bigger, I’m liking it a lot. I’m going to buy more next week, as this batch is top rate.
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Anyone using diatomaceous earth in their potting mix and can’t pick it up locally should check Zoro.com. I bought three 25 lb bags for $29 including shipping.
Which brand?
Floordry
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These are recipes that are similar to promix. They work for plants that like pH in the 6-7 range.
Soilless mix, like promix HP.
1 bale peat moss (6 cubic feet)
2x 5kg brick compressed coco coir (2.5 cubic feet each)
1 bag perlite (4 cubic feet)
5 gallons compost
5 gallons vermiculite
Soil mix, more like fox farm happy frog. Doesn’t need food, water only, for 1-2 years.
1 bale peat moss
2x 5kg bricks coco coir
1 bag perlite
30 gallons compost
10 gallons vermiculite
For blueberry, been having good luck using 50/50 mix of peat and pine bark, and amending with a mix of acid loving fertilizers. Mix of fertilizer is equal parts
Expert Gardener Azalea, Camellia, and Rhododendron,
Hyr-Brix Fruit & Berry,
Espoma Berry Tone,
Soil acidifying sulfur
Fertilizer dosage is 1 cup per cubic foot when prepping soil, and after the first year 1/4 cup for top dress every month in 30 gallons.
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Calcined DE was Napa part number 8822, but it’s been a few years since I got any.
Would it be reasonable to assume the mineral components in this mix would not need to be sterilized? If son you could reduce the volume of materials needing to be sterilized and mix in the perlite and vermiculite and lime afterwards.
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Anything that is pre-sterilized can be added afterward. The bugaboo with homemade mixes is use of compost or worm castings. Either has enough phytothora to kill seedlings. If you try to steam sterilize compost, you will have problems getting it to heat all the way through. Mix with peat moss and steam will then penetrate into every nook and cranny.
I used to make my own potting mix from scratch, but last season I got a few yards of “garden mix” delivered, and for potting mix I just cut that with coarse perlite (~30% perlite), mixing in my wheelbarrow as needed. Here’s the recipe for the garden mix published on the website of the local company that delivered it:
- 30% soil
- 35% aged compost (municipal source)
- 25% “Moo Doo” (aged steer manure mixed with sawdust)
- 10% sand
It works pretty well as a potting mix when mixed with perlite, and the compost includes lots of partially decomposed wood chips/bark to add coarse texture other than the perlite. The municipal compost has the potential to be contaminated with pesticides or worse, but other than picking out bits of plastic I haven’t noticed anything along those lines.
I don’t sterilize for seed starting, and rarely notice any issues with most types of seeds. The only ones where I’ve had trouble with damping off are passifloras and papayas, never really any issues with garden seeds like tomatoes, peppers, cucurbits, or the various fruit trees I’ve started from seed.