interesting for sure.. thanks for posting that.. guess I should do my own side by side

Thanks for posting that, Karen. I do not like the stuff at all and have not heard a positive experience from anyone.....except for the dude at the garden centre that in hind's site was obviously trying to sell off the inventory. BTW, credibility in a small industry does make a difference. I see he is no longer at that garden centre.

Allison gets good results.

Karen

yes very good... all I use.. seems to have a lot of advantages.. no damp off at all... no gnats .. just love it

Allison, You must have the Good Stuff available in your area. I don't see any info as to where the stuff was from that I bought. It's quite possible that it is not great with our water. We have a very high pH 7.3 winter & up to 8.5 in the summer for our tap water. The entire area soil is high alkaline

I never checked my water ph... guess I should

Great article, Karen. I've used only 2 different brands of coir. Sun Leaves was the one that was an absolute disaster, to the point where I emptied my containers of it after only 1 season. I believe it was not properly rinsed and had a high salt content. I flooded one of my containers that was using it and it definitely helped, but it would take a lot to rectify that problem. Even when I was trying to rehydrate the Sun Leaves coir, it took forever and a lot of manual breaking up of the chunky bits.

I've used the CocoTek brand from General Hydroponics with quite good results. Reconstitutes very easily. I've never checked my water pH either....hmmmm.......

I think CocoTek was what I bought from Boca Bob .. a few years ago.. was the same as the stuff I bought in the big lot.. hydrates easy and re hydrates easy.. the only problem I have is have to be super careful watering before good roots are set.. this stuff is so soft it can shift and the roots can loose hold.. I usually use a spray bottle for a week or two depending on how fast they grow .. before I water normally

I just googled what is the water pH of Calgary and there was all kinds of info.

I think my town lists it on there website as well..will have to check

you tell me.. does it look like growth was retarded .. 2/20/12



and today



I planted them in pure coir since I didn't realize I didn't have perlite when the plugs arrived

They look great, Allison. You have the magic touch.

Karen

figured they deserved some hardening off .. since my garden planted ones are so active .. the agastache in the ground are already 6" tall.. just amazing

I really like the texture of some coir: much coarser than any peat product I've bought.

Whether it works better or worse or much worse than peat moss, and whether that is due only to salinity or other factors, I really don't know.

Is there any kind of moss, peat moss, or sphagum moss that is not as fine as the very thin brown threads I see when I buy cheap peat mixes?

Allison, WOW! They look awesome. What do you fertilize with and how often?

thanks!!!... I bought spray & grow for the first time.. and did that twice since feb after they recovered from shipping ... but put just a couple of slow release pellets in the pot .. towards the bottom.. figured once they are in there new homes that they will have some sort of fertilizer.. since the coir has none .. and I don't need to water a ton since i put the water gels in there as well .. always a big help in my opinion

the coco wet in the spray & grow.. claims it will choke out mealy bugs.. (got some on my hand and it feels like cooking oil.. and didn't wash off easy) my coleus needed me to try this.. so far it seems to work well .. a bit of a smell but it wears off after a while .. Randy didn't complain so I assumed he didn't smell anything

you know I have to admit defeat... guess there are situations that don't work with coir.. I had agastache root beer that I sowed in paper cells from dollar general... like 1" cells... ran out of perlite and just used straight coir.. guess it was a bad combo.. the seedlings are alive but not thriving in there.. germinated on 2/27 and only look a month old today.. I can say that setup was not a good one

Sorry, Allison. But one time isn't a fair trial. We all have an attempt or two that doesn't work, doesn't matter if with coir or potting mix.

Most of my original coleus cuttings are huge now, root bound in 4" pots. A few that were big, healthy plants last summer are barely surviving. All are potted in ProMix. I have no idea why my duds are duds. I should have repotted them, but haven't. They're going to go right into the ground like everyone else and they can sink or swim. If they sink, I'll be on the coleus forum begging cuttings in the fall.

Besides, do you still have a truck load of coir?

Karen

a few loads... don't get me wrong I have lots of seedling thriving in it... and I will use it in my containers for years.. I am thinking the paper trays stayed too wet.. so I will place blame on them

>> I am thinking the paper trays stayed too wet.. so I will place blame on them

I know this is an obsession of mine, but I always distrust a small, shallow cell if the mix is water-retentive. I always fear that some water will remain "perched" in the bottom inch or so of the cell. If that batch of coir is pretty fine, or just has more fines than usual, it might be retaining too much water in the lower half of a shallow cell, and excluding air.

Also, in general, fine mix plus roots not yet extensive suggests to me that even slight over-watering can drown a roots that lacks enough size tgo "drink itself above water level" .

If I overwater a big sedling, it can pull enough water out of the soil to let air back in, if it has to. But a little tiny plant with even small roots? All it can do is drown, or refuse to send roots down below the water table.

YMMV