Market Farming

[David King <greenman AT ucla.edu>]

Ah... my first post to this list...

I used to make my own seed starting mix using perlite and peat moss.  One 
year I taught a
seed starting seminar and I decided it would be fun to show the class that 
you didn't
need to spend money on a commercial mix that would be a waste of your 
resources.  I
started lettuce  from seeds - hundreds of 'em - in flats of my homemade mix, 
a homemade
mix using the (then) new coir fibers, a commercial potting mix and Whitney 
Farms seed
starting mix.  I also started my tomatoes in the same fashion, but not enough 
plants to
be "scientific".

The results were startling enough to make your eyes bug out, to use a term 
that keeps
this truly a scientific report.  The Whitney Farms Seed starting mix out 
preformed after
every fashion, by all criteria.  I now use it exclusively, expense be damned.
Germination was better, root growth and shoot growth was more robust.  I was 
soundly
defeated in my premise.  I don't have the statistics at hand anymore (this 
was 5 years
ago), but it was fairly astonishing.

David King,
who encourages all to undertake their own study as
Your Mileage May Vary