Just a couple questions

[kajlo34]

(ps. this is sort of a combination between personal introduction/seed starting/general questions, so I hope this is an ok place to post. I wasn't sure which of the three to go to!)

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking around here for a while and it's such a wonderful, informative community! I was hoping you'd be able to help me clarify a few things before I start my first batch of seedlings. Ever!

Short bio: Last year was my first year gardening. I bought all my plants as transplants from the store. I set up and filled two raised bed/square-foot gardens (4'x4' each), and had quite a nice first season for the most part with more tomatos than I could possibly eat. I learned a lot about the process in general and about specific veggies, and this year I'm hoping to take it a step further and start most of my plants from seed (and adding a third box).

I've read a lot of information in books and catalogs and the internet, of course, and have my basic setup all planned out. I've bought some trays/cell-packs (which I actually bought crazy cheap at the end of last season when my local garden centre cleared out their propagation inventory!) and shops lights, etc. (I'm planning on posting some photos really soon!) I just need help with a few last minute decisions before I begin (only broccoli and onions and parsley for a few more weeks still... no tomatoes until March *sigh*). I know some of these questions have been raised in other posts (I have done my research beforehand, I swear!), but I think I've tailored them specifically enough that they're not repetitive.

1. Can you germinate in vermiculite alone? And if so, how long after germination before the seedling needs to be moved to a nutrient-containing medium? The "square foot gardening" method recommends this, although I have no bias either way towards using it. I was just curious whether it had any advantages or disadvantages versus a starter mix (for germination only - I know that the seedling needs more nutrients after that).

2. I've looked at many stores in the area - everything from Walmart to Home Depot to local garden centres and larger chain greenhouses - and in my area (just west of Toronto, Ontario, Canada), the selection of seed-starting mixes is almost identical everywhere, and just consists of the same major brands - Miracle-Gro, CIL, etc. I've never seen the fancy Pro-Mix or Sunshine products I've read about here. Anyways, I bought a few bags of Fafard Agro Mix because I came across it at a really good price a few days ago. I just wanted to make sure that it would be ok to use for my transplants once they leave the germination tray, or if anyone here had ever used it. It seems to have everything in it that it needs. Here's a link: http://bit.ly/wJk0e7

3. Assuming I use the Agro Mix, will I need to fertilize the seedlings at some point before they go outside? If yes, with what? I know this question has been asked a bazillion times, but again, I can only seem to find big brand names around here. I've never seen fish fertilizer in a store, and the one time I found liquid kelp, it was a tiny $25 bottle. Would any of the more mainstream products (diluted down maybe?) be appropriate for seedlings? I do have worm castings left over from last year (they don't expire, right?) that I plan to add in with the growing mix in the transplant cups; I'm pretty sure that will be beneficial, but I'm not sure if it's enough by itself.

4. The SFG community (the online one, at least) seems to take everything the method's creator says as law, and although I'm extremely content with how my garden turned out last year by following SFG practices as close as possible, certain aspects of it are difficult to follow through with consistently, either for financial or logistic reasons, and I'm hoping to experiment and find a balance that works for me. With that said, I was wondering what would be the best thing to fill my raised beds with - preferably a good balance of cost and effectiveness? The SFG "Mel's Mix" is made up of 1/3 each sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite, and blended compost. The cost-prohibitive part of this for me is mostly the vermiculite, which only seems to be sold in teeny, expensive 5L bags here, and buying enough to fill an entire 4x4 garden would be crazy (if my math is right, I'd need about 45 bags). Any suggestions at all - whether variations on the official Mel's Mix or something completely different that's worked for you - would be awesomely appreciated!

Wow... didn't plan on writing anywhere near that much when I started typing. Sorry for the overload; I'm just excited ;) Thank you in advance for your help!

[dice]

1. Never tried it. As an alternative, you could spread some of
your Fafard mix over a window screen and shake fine stuff out of
it until you have enough to use for seed-starting. You want holes
in the screen just a little smaller than a BB, so anything bigger
than that stays on top and anything smaller than that falls through.

2. Never used it, but it will probably work for potting up sprouted
seedlings.

3. 3 parts potting mix (the Fafard Agro in your case) to 1 part
worm castings in 3-inch square, 3.75 inch deep pots works for me.
If you run out of worm castings before you run out of seedlings,
a pinch of some kind of balanced, slow-release organic fertilizer
in each 3" pot will work instead (although not as perfectly as
the worm castings, in my personal opinion). If you find yourself
having to use something like Miracle Gro, use no more than
1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water, with about 2 weeks in between
fertilizer applications. Seedlings are tender, it is easy to burn
them with too much synthetic fertilizer too early.

4. Most people (I think) would fill raised beds with some bulk product
from a landscape materials supplier in an urban area where farm
materials are scarce. Maybe this helps?
http://canadiangardenpal.com/d/on/
You can find some of the garden supplies too exotic for big box
hardware stores at hydroponic suppliers, too (look in the phone book).

Personally, I would prefer pumice to vermiculite. It holds water better
than perlite (not as well as vermiculite, but it does hold water), adds
drainage and air space, and it lasts a great deal longer than vermiculite.
It comes in all sizes. Landscape materials suppliers that sell lava rock
might have it. You could also substitute a fine grade of pine or fir bark
for the vermiculite.

I did not see much useful in here, but if you check the Free and
Farm & Garden categories occasionally, stuff that you want will turn
up (I was looking for rabbit, llama, or alpaca manure, which would be
gold in your raised beds): http://toronto.craigslist.ca/

Seedlings are usually potted up from seed-starting cells to around 3-inch
pots when they have the first set of true leaves.

nctomatoman has this "dense planting" technique that he uses to start
thousands of seedlings for seedling sales in the spring. Watching his
videos should be informative. Find the "dense planting" sticky thread
at the top of this Seed-Starting forum at Tomatoville. (You will not
need to do exactly what he does with your small garden, of course,
but you can see at what size he pots up sprouted seedlings.)

[kajlo34]

I did a quick test with the mediums I was asking about, and thought I would report that the 100% vermiculite has been much worse at germinating and growing seedlings than both Agro Mix and a 50/50 mix of the two. Germinating broccoli and tomato seeds took many days longer in the vermiculite and the resulting seedlings are slower and weaker-looking. (I did also find Pro-Mix finally. On clearance! Woo! I'm going to compare it to the Agro-Mix next.)

Thank you very much, dice, for taking the time to reply with so much helpful information. I appreciate it. Thanks especially for the hint about hydroponics shops. Apparently there is a crazy amount of them around here for some reason, and they seem to have a huge selection of growing mediums and fertilizers. I'm going to keep checking craigslist (and kijiji, which is more popular here in Canada) for composts and manures as well.

[dice]

$25 a pint seemed a bit high for kelp solution. Good luck with your
seedlings.

[RayR]

I haven't tried sprouting in vermiculite for many years, but what I know about vermiculite is that the PH is highly variable, anywhere from 5.5 to 8.0. Pretty much all clay's are like that.
If it is at the low side or the high side, that would have a negative effect on the growth of the seedlings. Mixed in a potting soil, the PH of the vermiculite would have a negligible effect on the overall PH of the mix, but using vermiculite as a seed seed starting medium is a crap shoot without knowing the PH of the batch you are using.

[recklessinPA]

An inexpensive and effective alternative to $25 per pint kelp solution is found in most Oriental-oriented or very large grocery stores that sell dried seaweed.

Take either a sheet or large pinch (if sold loose) and place in a half-gallon milk container and fill with warm water. Shake container daily and after a week or so it's ready for use!

Do not use the 'roasted' seaweed product that's also available.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by kajlo34

4. The SFG community (the online one, at least) seems to take everything the method's creator says as law, and although I'm extremely content with how my garden turned out last year by following SFG practices as close as possible, certain aspects of it are difficult to follow through with consistently, either for financial or logistic reasons, and I'm hoping to experiment and find a balance that works for me. With that said, I was wondering what would be the best thing to fill my raised beds with - preferably a good balance of cost and effectiveness? The SFG "Mel's Mix" is made up of 1/3 each sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite, and blended compost. The cost-prohibitive part of this for me is mostly the vermiculite, which only seems to be sold in teeny, expensive 5L bags here, and buying enough to fill an entire 4x4 garden would be crazy (if my math is right, I'd need about 45 bags). Any suggestions at all - whether variations on the official Mel's Mix or something completely different that's worked for you - would be awesomely appreciated!

SFG is a good idea, but it's expensive, and it doesn't really scale with the kind of indeterminate tomato varieties that are popular here on Tomatoville. Most of the varieties I grow need 2 feet in both directions.

A cost effective approach can be to find a soil company nearby that offers a soil mix designed for home gardens. But it's hard to tell at a glance the difference between good soil and soil which is adulterated with chemicals or is of poor quality.

[janezee]

Hi, and welcome!

1. I've tried it, didn't have luck with it. Problems with damping off, mostly.

2. Haven't used it, but it looks good on paper! Way better than straight vermiculite, at least.

3. I think your worm castings will make you very happy. I'd just add Mykos or MykoGrow or something similar if I ran out of castings, because I've heard that it produces similar results. Mine are happy, anyway. 8)

4. They are way too preachy over there, aren't they? You'd think it was impossible to produce a single vegetable without the absolute adherence to the Mel's Mix, and yet, there are so many having problems. I don't get it. My beds are filled with really good, aged mushroom compost, and lightened with perlite. I add a bit of bone meal and blood meal and lime in the fall, and top off with more compost. This incurred the ire of the converted, but my vegetables are amazingly sweet, large, productive, and healthy. That's what I consider success. Gardening is fun, not grief for not following rules.
I like the grid idea for keeping track of what's where, and not thinning, but my broccoli and cabbage need more than a square foot! Those grids would need adjustment if their methods worked that well!

Gardening is more an art, once you've got the basics of the science down. There are a few tricks that will work in your part of the country that won't work somewhere else, but we're here to help. Glad you made your way here. Keep us posted, and ask as many questions as you want. No one will bite your head off here.....I don't think!

j

[willyb]

I don't know about starting in vermiculite only. I think the plants need some nutrient, not much.

I mix my own and use it right from gremination to final transplant in the garden

For 12 gallons of mix

1 peat moss
1 vermiculite
1 perolite
1 compost or lowcost potting soil. Less than .5 .5 .5
2 cups bonemeal

Liquid plant starter feritilizer in the water 4 12 4 at 1/5 the recomended strength

[willyb]

RecklessinPA

Seaweed from the chinese store! Best gardening tip I have seen in years. Thanks! There are far too many overpriced bagged or bottled products out there. Waste of money.

[lakelady]

Originally Posted by recklessinPA

An inexpensive and effective alternative to $25 per pint kelp solution is found in most Oriental-oriented or very large grocery stores that sell dried seaweed.

Take either a sheet or large pinch (if sold loose) and place in a half-gallon milk container and fill with warm water. Shake container daily and after a week or so it's ready for use!

Do not use the 'roasted' seaweed product that's also available.

Why is the "roasted" seaweed not good? Last year I had a bag of crunchy seaweed that was for cooking, yet I could not use the whole bag, so I was boiling the stuff in water and feeding my plants with it. They seemed to do pretty well. I'm not sure it was roasted, maybe it was just freeze dried. It sure was a lot of work that's all I know, all that boiling and straining and such

[janezee]

Green sheets of seaweed for sushi are not roasted, but dried. One roasts it just before rolling the rice and food inside the sheet. Yummm


Update: I was completely wrong. Sorry. I went to the Asian grocery store, and ALL the seaweed sheets I found were roasted. Curious, because when I learned to make it years ago, I was taught to roast it over a gas flame just before stuffing, changing it from dark green to extremely dark green/blackish. Perhaps just for texture. Idunno.