>> Rick, picture me with my magnifier headband and dental tool!
I would never have DARED to make a suggestion! It's not safe!
>> At one point I had 14 plug trays planted! What a chore, every morning and/or evening putting them in the boot tray to bottom water and misting the tops!
That is impressive. Maybe when I retire, if I'm still mobile, I might get half that ambitious. Now I'm overloaded if I have 4 going at the same time, because soon I have to pot them up and put them "somewhere".
I use 72-cell inserts (6-packs) for most veggies. Otherwise I use a 50-cell plug tray (round and deep) or a 128-cell plug tray (square cells).
I have to find a boot tray and try bottom-watering that way (some day). My only other solution to mud-in-the-tub was to put a rectangle of cotton flannel into my 1020 trays. Each of my plug trays sits in a 1020 tray, and since last year it rests ON the flannel so there is a capillary connection to the soil in every cell.
The flannel "spreads the water around" so that it reaches every cell as long as there is an y water left in the tray. That way, I can add small amounts of water to the bottom, and then either leave it there, or remove visible water with a turkey baster. I never have to dunk them 1/2" deep, or leave the grooves in the tray flooded while the cells can't reach any water.
>> One thing I have found down here in GA., the potting mix is not the same as what I am used to in MD. IT's not soil at all, it's pretty much shredded bark. Maybe because of the clay? Sort of like what the nurseries are potting their plants in.
Potting MIX or potting SOIL?
What you're describing is what I like for containers, but more expensive. When I used potting SOIL in pots, it compacted and drowned.
Probably my own bark-heavy "seed starting mix" is more like most peoples' idea of POTTING mix. To coarse, too fast and too dry for normal seed-starting. But those disadvantages combine with my inability to stop overwatering, and they kind of cancel out.
