Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

At 6:01 PM -0700 1/29/10, Tradingpost wrote:
> Interesting. Speaking only for myself, I see no point in sterile 
> potting mixes. I've never seen any evidence it avoids disease or 
> other problems. And I don't spend money on heating pads and lights. 
> I tell myself KISS - keep it simple stupid ...
>
> I just use some commercial coir-based mix, with small amounts of the 
> things that go in the beds, soil, alfalfa meal, screened manure, 
> bonemeal, greensand, maybe some vermicompost. Hardly sterile! And I 
> germinate in 4" pots in flats indoors, then move to get some light 
> soon as stuff sprouts. Never had a problem with disease or damping 
> off.

I used homemade compost the first year I grew a lot of seeds and 
found that some of the volunteer tomato seeds sprouted before the 
tomato seeds I planted. (All tomato seedlings look alike at first.) 
So ever since, I've used a coir-based purchased potting mix.

I've grown tomatoes and peppers in a cold frame (google wintersown 
for more ideas), and I agree that keeping the seedlings in a cooler 
environment helps prevent diseases and damping off.