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Old May 25, 2009   #10
dice
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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If I recall correctly, Black Gold is a Sun Gro product, one
marketed to the retail nursery market:

http://www.sungro.com/products.php

Should be ok. (I see their potting mixes, etc, occasionally in one
of the chain stores up here. I have not used it myself.)

I used a Sun Gro plug mix (LG-3) this year that I traded
something for last winter. It has a nice texture, but it holds
water a little too well for seedlings that need to stay in
newspaper pots for 6 weeks or more (80+% peat, with some
vermiculite and perlite for drainage). When I mixed it 50/50
with some 1/2 sand, 1/2 composted wood waste that I have
for outdoors before potting up, that was not good, either.
It tended to crust up and lost large pore air space compared
to the peaty LG-3. The sweet spot was 75% LG-3, 25% the sandy
outdoor compost. The seedlings I potted up into that were far
and away the healthiest. They were started 2 weeks earlier,
but at plant out they were 2-3 times as big and completely
healthy.

All seed-starting mixes are clearly not created equal.
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