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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] potted fruit culture basics

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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat@containerseeds.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] potted fruit culture basics
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 12:48:46 -0500

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:46:54 -0500, you wrote:

>What I notice about the local farm stand is that they can grow virtually
>anything in a container - whether it be a summer flower or chrysanthemums or
>'flowering kale' for fall sale.
>
>I know they use a commercial expensive potting mix that comes in bale sizes
>and I suspect, but don't know, if they add conventional fertilizer. What I
>know for sure is their results are almost always superior, presentable
>enough for gifts and their customers shell out the dollars to buy and take
>away.

I can do this as well. It's not all that difficult.
However, the big nurseries and growers spray their plants to
make them bloom earlier and to retard their growth. That I
don't do. So my plants aren't in bloom (or in fruit) as
quickly as those from nurseries, plant centers, and so on.
Mine will probably have more flowers or fruit in the long
run, though.

I don't use expensive potting mix: well, not that
expensive. I use all-purpose soilless mix, such as Pro-Mix
(there are other brands that are often a bit cheaper). It
consists of a mixture of sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite,
and perlite. There are variations on this too, including
the use of coir (coconut fiber) instead of the peat moss.

Or you can buy potting soil (or sterilized top soil), peat
moss or coir, and vermiculite or perlite, and mix your own
(1/3 each). Some sand in the mix is good for succulents and
cacti. I don't mix my own, though I did before soilless mix
was readily available, since it's much easier to buy the
already-mixed stuff.

It costs me about $19 for a 3.8 square foot compressed bale
of all-purpose soilless mix. It's really very compressed
too. It flies out all over the place when you open it
(which should be done on an old plastic table cloth or old
sheet or something so you can contain it). This is enough
to fill two ordinary household garbage pails (outside
garbage pails - this is what I store it in).

I use a balanced fertilizer or plant food, generally feeding
my container plants twice a week. This can be an organic
fertilizer, such as fish emulsion, (for those desiring one)
or a non-organic fertilizer such as Miracle-Grow, or a
houseplant food such as are sold by Peters or Schultz. I
have had excellent results with all of them.

Alternatively, for outside containers ONLY, I sometimes use
spent mushroom soil (see:
http://www.americanmushroom.org/compost.htm) which I can buy
for $35 per full-size pick-up truck-full. I do not bring it
in the house because it's not sterile (having been sitting
in my yard for a while) and may have insects such as fungus
gnats. When I use the spent mushroom soil, I do not need to
fertilize my container plants for the entire season.

Having varieties suited to container-growing helps, of
course. It's difficult, for instance, to grow full-size
indeterminate tomatoes in containers, but easy to grow other
(smaller, of course) varieties of tomatoes. I have lots of
red ripe little tomatoes on plants in my bay window at the
moment, in fact. Fluorescent lights hung in the bay window
supplement winter's scanty (almost non-existent this year)
sunshine.

>What I'm getting at is I wish I knew what they knew - of course they've been
>doing this for 4+ generations vs. my fooled around with container growing
>for 15 yrs or so. I do grow trees in tubes and am reasonably successful.
>I wish we had a "fruit growers boot camp" we could all attend so we could
>advance our starting line point in our horticultural endeavors.

I haven't tried container-trees for a long time: at one
point, I had indoor citrus trees that were doing very well.
But that was a while ago.

>I've got to go now; I'm sore from kicking myself for not having gotten a
>job years ago with them and learning from them the easy way.
>

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but - again - I really
recommend "Bountiful Container" (a book) very highly.

My review of it is here:
http://www.containerseeds.com/bookstore/bountiful.html

Cheers,
Pat
--
ContainerSeeds.com - vegetable, herb, fruit, and
edible flower seeds for successful container growing.
http://www.containerseeds.com





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