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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost AT gilanet.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] A Riddle ...
  • Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 13:27:44 -0700


We've started our bedding plants with a mix of Grow-Coir and smaller amounts
of perlite, potting soil, and worm castings. So far so good. Barb sprinkles a
little corn meal around the tomato seedlings to discourage damping off. We'll
see.

paul tradingpost AT gilanet.com

That is well said, replied Candide, but we must cultivate our garden.
--Voltaire [Francois-Marie Arouet] Candide

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 3/31/2004 at 2:44 PM Pat Meadows wrote:

>On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 11:41:13 -0600 (CST), you wrote:
>
>
>>
>> 1. Those 72 hole things you can buy at the hardward store for
>> $5
>> 2. I've recently moved to shallow (8 inches high I think)
>> sweater boxes. In these, I've been using those Jiffy-Pack
>> peat containers (square ones) filled with the 'Supersoil'.
>> I can fit 50-60 of these in one sweater box.
>> 3. Same as #2 but with round jiffy-pack peat containers.
>
>I've had really bad results with peat pots. I won't use
>them anymore.
>
>I use the little 6-cell packs: 48 of those fit in the flat.
>That gives the roots more room to grow than the 72-hole
>things. Of course, it takes up more room per plant too.
>
>I think you're paying vastly more than you need to if you
>buy this type of item at a local hardware store. Online
>nursery/greenhouse suppliers should be *vastly* cheaper.
>Maybe you even have a nursery supplier nearby - we don't.
>You can Google on 'nursery supplies' to find them. One is
>here: http://www.fredgloeckner.com . There are lots of
>others.
>
>>
>>> Have you fed them with any fertilizer/plant food? If so,
>>> what kind and how often?
>>
>>No, I'm not feeding them at all. The 'Supersoil' has some fertilizer in
>>it already. As I said, i've been very succesful with this stuff up until
>>recently. Lettuce planted from seed in the sweater boxes on 2/6/04 are
>>already in the ground and growing! Others in this set of stunted plants
>>with bound roots have been sitting there since Dec and Jan.
>
>My guess would be that they didn't get nearly enough
>nourishment.
>
>>> Can you give an estimate of how many hours of sunlight they
>>> receive per day (on average)?
>>
>>Well, as I said, up until about a week ago I had to them all in at night.
>
>>So they were getting probably 8-10 hours a day. Now they're outside all
>>the time, so they get 12+ hours a day.
>
>That's certainly plenty of sun - so that's not the problem.
>
>Maybe it's a combination of factors, but I would strongly
>suspect 'not enough nourishment'.
>
>Because my seedlings are in the house, I feed my seedlings
>with houseplant food (I can't use fish extract in the house
>or my cat would be up there destroying the plants) - just a
>basic, ordinary houseplant food from the grocery store,
>using the houseplant food at 1/2 the strength recommended on
>the bottle. I feed them (at this 1/2 strength) every other
>time I water them - they generally need watering daily, so
>they are fed every other day.
>
>So far, so good (all fingers crossed!). I've never had any
>problems.
>
>And I try to time starting the seeds so that they are in the
>little 6-cell packs the minimum possible time. I started
>lettuce and Asian greens on March 3, for example, and
>transplanted them outside two days ago. Swiss chard
>started on March 10 will go outside sometime this week.
>
>Cheers,
>Pat
>--
>"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of
>supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to
>live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry
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