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Next growing season underway!

6 comments


Oh boy, oh boy!
My wife picked up some neat “toys” for me to experiment with today!

She had found me some of those cool bio-degradable seed starter containers that eliminate any chance of “transplant shock” in difficult seedlings. You simply put the planter pot in the ground and it decomposes quickly in organically prepared soil.

The seeds going into these will be Onions, Baby’s breath, and Gaillardia pulchella. This will be cool to get a little head start on spring planting, growing these little guys indoors. I will be testing a new organic seed starter soil mix that I found.. We’ll see what happens!

N2O

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Comments

 

Bearing in mind that plastic pots are not recyclable I'm surprised that more isn't done with bio pots. It must be incredibly cheap to make them but I doubt that they are cheap to buy.

26 Feb, 2010

 

Just a thought, If you placed a pot upside-down, thoroughly soak newspaper until mushy, add PVA or wallpaper paste, mould it around the pot - doesn't need to be neat, then allow to dry. It might work.

26 Feb, 2010

 

congrats to you for looking for "green" ways to do things...there are pots made with coir...which I don't like as much as the peat pots..but the problem with peat is that it is a non-renewable resource...I know there plenty of peat bogs here in Canada and the U.S.... but in some parts of the world peat isn't used any more. Heron's idea with the wall paper paste sounds like a possiblity too. but organic wallpaper paste is food and housing for some moulds and mildews.
...but you can make pots from folded newspaper... they work ok but you have to have them in a flat that is full...as they will degrade when the seedlings are watered and fall to pieces when you try to pick them up... and then there is the concern about the ink.
I've used a plastic flat that I fill with my own mix...it's not hard to do... peat, perlite and vermiculite works well, granted you still have to be careful when transplanting the seedlings. The coir pots are made of tough stuff from coconut fibre...they don't degrade quickly but they support and protect the young plants very well...might be a tad more expensive too...

26 Feb, 2010

 

Lori, one thing to remember about "peat moss" is that "peat-moss" DOES NOT support biological activity in the soil. Peat Moss is GREAT for storing bulbs over the winter, but is totally unsuitable for an addition to any potting soil.
Here's what I use for all of my potted plants:http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garden/view_question/id/2128/

More info on perlite and troubleshooting potted plants:
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/organic/garden/dallasnews/id/676/

28 Feb, 2010

 

the peat moss/perlite/vermiculite is a soilless mix...that's why I use it for seedlings...no damping off.. and when mixed into the soil it opens and lightens the mix... the biocontent is added with the compost from kitchen scraps etc...but I don't use that for seedlings.

28 Feb, 2010

 

Interesting technique Lori!
I will have to experiment with that and do some carefully controlled "A-B tests" using non-hybrid seeds and see what happens! What a cool idea!

2 Mar, 2010

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