[Market-farming] tomato seedlings--soilless mix or potting soil?
Road's End Farm
organic87 at frontiernet.net
Wed Mar 31 14:58:03 EDT 2010
On Mar 31, 2010, at 1:48 PM, waldenfarm wrote:
> I know everyone says to use a sterile mix or you'll get diseased
> plants, but
> it just ain't so.
Seconding this. I use a compost based mix (McEnroe's, I have also used
others'); I reuse plastic containers, rinse them out between uses but
make no attempt to sterilize them. I have never had a disease problem
in the transplant flats with tomatoes or anything else, except
possibly for once many years ago with lettuce; but I suspect that the
problem in that case was not actually disease but insufficient
lighting and too much water.
I suspect that if you start with a sterile soilless mix it may indeed
be necessary to sterilize the containers etc.; I think the sterile
soilless mixes don't have any beneficials to fight off the pathoges
with.
-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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