Hi.dmforcier ..I biked up to the garden centre and the man there who "begrudgedly" serves me..Said "what do you want." I said "some Sphagnum peat moss please " ..He said "why the hell do you want that ..Its not sterile ..you will get diseases".....What does one say after that ..So I went back home with nothing and did some more reading and went for the advice of tomatodirt.com and Cornel University??? I am finished with that guy ..its an embarisment to go to the gardening dept just up the road...
Right the dirt???? There is a story I was told about dirt here and it all begins apparantly at a soil company just 5-6 miles out of the city .... They supply another garden centre who sell their super grow mix by the scoop full (tractor) and even bag it for you for $49 ( about 8-10 bags)..then I found out that garden centre company owns the Growing Company that grows the tomatoes flowers etc and probably own the soil company or at least have some ownership of it and in turn they supply the Biggest seller of bagged soil in NZ and possibly
others who operate under another name.... the rubbish soil is bagged and sold by them to a NZ wide franchise hardware company similar to home depot who on sell it for $14 a bag as top grade Tomato mix....???? They do not even lie about it..Its a game ....I buy a tractor scoop of soil for $49 (bagged) and others buy practicly the same amount with some additives for probably $120 - $130 in fancy bags....
Capillary cloth..I use Pams Genie Wipes ??? $1.79 for two ...In the photo you can see the polystyrene under the pots is in two pieces on purpose cause I just use a wipe at each end and fold the wipes under in the centre so that they make contact with the water in the tray.... I once used this method for all my plants but I only use it now for seedlings and youngsters when its used for only a short period of time IE 2 - 3 weeks as in the growth chamber.......because 2 seasons ago I had a terrible season with disease and although I have no proof I believe that it could have been the underwatering that did it.. The reservoir trays got terribly smelly and dirty and I could not lift the Tomato bag up off them to try and keep the reservoir clean and free of any likely hood of disease..I just kept filling the reservoir trays up with fresh water from a hose but what good was that doing ..If there was disease underneath the water was probably still feeding disease up via the capillary cloth into my plants so unless there is a way to ensure only clean water is being fed from underneath I am going to stick with the wick system I am now using ?? I do still feed each plant every 7 - 10 days manually with Miracle Gro ..the wick is just an insurance but it is saving me a lot of time...
Once I get my trays in the growing chamber I will post photos etc ...I might build another one and use an upright fridge freezer that cost me a $1 on auction but I felt sorry for the guy and gave him $5 hoping to get some tips on growing tomatoes ...He worked for a company in the UK growing tomatoes but my "generosity" was unrewarded...
I better get back doing the transplanting so as I can then have some tea... What would I do without Tomatoes??Regards Ron
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