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New to growing your own tomatoes? This is the forum to learn the successful techniques used by seasoned tomato growers. Questions are welcome, too.

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Old March 24, 2006   #16
Tomstrees
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I agree with all the above -
My neighbor was going to throw them
out - so I thought ? Free is for me ~
but def. this is the last year for them.

Tom
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Old March 24, 2006   #17
carolyn137
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I'm just chiming in with the others here.

When I moved in 1999 to my preesent location I threw out a carton of 500 peat pots and that tells you what I think of them, as in I hate them .

I also will never use Jiffy pellets either, for several reasons.

Jiffy Mix per se, yes, it's great, but not used with those compressed pellets.

What you use also depends on how many plants you're raising.

I always do the initial transpant from the seed starting container to plastic cells, 4 cells to the pack, 8 packs to a standard nursery size flat, for 32 plants to the tray. And the seedlings are grown to outside transplant size in those about 2 inch cells and that workls just fine.

About PV's mix.

Years ago when I didn't have my farmer friend Charlie to cadge mix from to fill my cells in the trays I used 1/2 good mix such as Jiffy Mix or Pro Mix and then 1/4 vermiculite and 1/4 perlite and that worked fine and cut down on the cost.

But I can also see a 1/3 moss, 1/3 perlite and 1/3 vermiculite working just as well, since all three would also be in a more expensive mix such as Jiffy or Pro or Metro or Fafard.

Moss, perlite and vermiculite are all available at nursery places in smaller bags and you mix your own. I can't speak to the box store locations b'c I never bought gardening stuff from them, but I don't see why they wouldn't have those things if they have a fairly complete gardening section.
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Old March 24, 2006   #18
paxpuella
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Carolyn, thank you very much for the response. I am fairly new to gardening and am going to make a bigger garden this year. I had heard of the different mixture soils, but hadn't ever seen them. I will have to look into buying some for this year.

Thanks again.
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Old March 27, 2006   #19
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Ah, the great peat pot debate. Since I frequently answer to the name "Pete", I can claim a certain expertise with anything containing peat . I like them. Who cares about the various molds (?) - doesn't seem to affect the final product. Roots easily grow through the peat pot. Potting up to a larger size is easy - just bury the whole pot in the larger size container. When I tansplant the seedling to the garden, there are bunches of roots that have grown out of the pots. Make sure the peat pot is totally buried in the garden and there is no problems with wicking. The pots disintigrate if you happen to water the garden.

I use the same type of 2" square pots that HeirloomNewb uses. They work just fine. Did I mention that they are very easy to pot up with? This may not be the preferred method for people with 250 tomatoes, but for the person with 50 like me, it works great.
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Old March 27, 2006   #20
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So far the Jiffy-Strips (finally found out the right name) are working fine.. very little mold to btw.

Pete,

I'm glad someone out there likes these things! I forsee no problems with them and if my stuff grows I will keep using them.

Thanks!
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Old March 27, 2006   #21
geoguy_TN
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Just remember to throw some water on them every once and a while and you'll do great. :wink:

Do you find that people winking at you is just a little creepy? :wink: :wink:
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Old March 27, 2006   #22
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Pax Puella (Peace Girl),

What Carolyn says is gold.

I don't know how many containers you're filling this year, but when I realized how many I'm gonna have to fill, I started lookin' for materials in bulk.

I got a bale of Canadian sphagnum at the local farm coop for around 14 bucks. I think you can get these big bales at box stores too.

I got the vermiculite in a 25-lb. bag at the coop also for about 12 bucks I think.

The diotomaceous earth oil absorb came in a 50-lb bag at a local farmers' supply store for 4.50 or so. But you can get that at most box stores or automotive stores. The baked clay type oil absorb comes for about 3.50 per 50-lb. bag.

Another reason I'm using my own mix with the oil absorb material to space it out and make it more porous is that I had some trouble in my earlier starter cells with the premix starting media I bought that held too much moisture (too high peat content), and lost some seedlings to damping off. Since I started mixing my own and got a very porous mix, I haven't lost one seedling.

I mixed it so that the water totally saturates the medium but runs right through the mix and out the bottom of the cup without any puddling at the top for more than maybe a few seconds.

The good thing about the oil absorb made from diotomaceous earth is that it really spaces out the mix and still retains a lot of moisture because the little diatomes are microscopically pinholed and absorb a lot of water. This is the same stuff they use to filter water in swimming pools only there it's crushed down even finer.

Let me know how things are goin' over in Little Egypt. We still make a few trips a year over that way to visit old friends in C-dale and West Frank.

Pacis in Ortus, PV
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