Viewing post #2313268 by IntheHotofTexas

You are viewing a single post made by IntheHotofTexas in the thread called Veggies.
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Jul 26, 2020 9:30 AM CST
Name: GERALD
Lockhart, Texas (Zone 8b)
Greenhouse Hydroponics Region: Texas
I'm not familiar with your region, so I can't comment on timing. But I'm unimpressed, to say the least, with your organic "soil." Sorry. it's not soil in sense of soil being essentially dirt. It looks like they're trying to grow in mulch. Who "made" the "soil?" Why is it "made for vegetables?" For containers? Or for gardens?

Here's my notion, for what it's worth. Am I missing something, like being informed that you applied mulch? Because that's what I see. I don't see enough soil to matter. I find a lot of partially decomposing stuff sold as compost or soil. What I see here is mostly wood chips and bark, essentially what comes out the back of the tree guy's grinder. I see people pile it up and let it sit and call it composted. But if this was supposed to be composted wood debris, it missed by a long way. And one thing that happens in a compost pile is that it eats nitrogen like mad to decompose the organic matter. Even finished compost offers plants little available nitrogen. It's wonderful stuff, but alone, it's not growing medium.

If you just barely begin composting or just toss it into a planter, the planter becomes a composter, and if you plant in it, the plants are starved for nitrogen. It may be more than a fertilizer meant to help replenish nutrients in existing good soil can compensate for. Even good compost is problematic by itself. It drains so well that it's hard to water properly. It's always still "cooking," so there's that problem.

There's nothing wrong with mulch as mulch. And some annual flowers do fine in pure mulch because they don't live long enough for the deficiencies to catch up to them. But making fruit takes a lot out of a plant.

If what we see on the surface is what the containers are like all the way down, get rid of it. Use it to start a compost pile. Or fill low spots with it. Get back to basics. Growing medium need not be "dirt." In fact the best for containers have no dirt in the sense of the finely pulverized rock that makes up dirt. You can look up many recipes for "potting soil" and container medium.

Watch the terminology. There are no reliable rules. "Mix" should and usually does mean soiless mixtures. Things like mixed of palm coir and perlite with some line and fertilizer and maybe some vermiculite. "Soil" is prone to having mystery dirt. It's like "topsoil" which may be good farm earth or just something a contractor scraped off a lot, rocks, broken glass, plastic and all. You best guides to soil are your fingers and nose. Soil is loose and fine and doesn't stay compacted when you squeeze it. And it smells like good dirt. But you don't care about dirt for your containers.

You can use some compost in a mix. But like soil, you have to investigate the compost. It should have no identifiable bits of the original material. Composted manure, which is the most common, will often have some lingering aroma of the source. That's okay.

But if you see "soil" in the ingredients, it's not going to be all that good for containers. Fine for in-ground and raised bed, though. And remember that bagged potting mix, being soiless, has some sort of initial fertilizer. So you have to follow up through the season.

Sorry, but I think if the top is typical of what's below, you're essentially trying to grow in mulch, which is doomed to failure.

And I don't buy a lot of that seasons stuff. I know there are truths there, but I also see too much grown out of "season" and out of region to depend on it without trying. They may not reach full potential, but they may do something. You have to rebuild you containers, anyway, if only for the fall planting, so why not move those seedlings into containers with a good medium and see what happens. Cost nothing, if you're going to keep your containers going year round.

Those are not huge containers, but I think you kind of shorted them on volume. That happens a lot when people are paying for commercial bagged mix. I find it satisfying and far more economical to mix my own container mixes. I have ten gallon retired chemical buckets with lids and mix and store it in those.

I love palm coir. it comes in bricks. You soak them in water, and they break down into a fine brown soil-like stuff that's so messy to handle that it just has to be good. (Peat is an alternative but is unsustainable and on the way out.) Great for moisture management and aeration. You don't need as much as you might think. The bricks really expand. Each of those 250g bricks is a gallon rehydrated. About $2 a brick Amazon. And Perlite is cheapish on Amaxon. I pay about $20 a cubic foot.

Those two are the base. From there, there are lot of amendments, like crushed limestone. Bone meal. Worm castings. Etc. Even compost, if you want, but only really good compost and not too much. I add vermiculite, because my containers are outdoors right now in 100+ heat, and vermiculite retains and slowly releases water. And of course, fertilizer. Lots of Internet resources on DIY potting mix. Don't worry about all the differences. Just get something close, and it will be fine.

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