Transistioning seedlings to the GH

[PureHarvest]

You can separate and should. You are right, I do think about the biz constantly. I don't worry about that. However, where you are doing most activities if you were paying somebody in your stead, you should track and assign cost.
I can send u a really cool and easy budget on excel that you can plug your costs into if you pm me your email. You can see mine as an example too for my tomatoes.
I highly recommend the book by Richard Wiswall dealing with planning a farm budget. I'll edit the title in later but a search will yield it. It was life changing for me as far as really not missing what needs to be counted and how you do it for a farm.
Of course it's nothin new, as there are countless budget templates out there, but his has things broken down in farming sense with related activities relevant to us. It really clicked for me.
I have not transplanted my main crop to bag yet, but I have 6 plants I started from seed 5 weeks ago. Check out my thread under the photos forum titled Indoor Head Start if you are interested. I will update the week 5 pics in a bit. There is more info too on my set up and fertilizer program under the general forum titled precision nutrient and equipment thread.

[PureHarvest]

Four Oaks, here are my bags from last year. Gonna quadruple this and go under a tunnel with no sides or end walls covered for max air flow but rain prevention. Plus have trusses to hang my strings from.

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[bower]

Beautiful place and great looking plants.
I like the growbags in black and/or white, they look really cool in white (so clean looking!)

I've been making my own growbags out of the bags that our compost comes in. Those bags are indestructable, they happen to be blue. I cut the bottom out of it, pull it over a bucket and fold and staple like wrapping a package to make a flat bottom. Use an office hole puncher to spread some drainage holes around the bottom and sides. After three years, even the ones that were left outdoors over winter and froze and thawed are still as strong as new... Not classy looking like the white and black, but it works.

All of the bags that hort products come in appear to be made of the same super tough plastic, it's a good freebie for anyone wanting to grow on a budget.

[PureHarvest]

That's a cool idea Bower.
It reminded me of a guy once who said he just bought 2 cubic foot bags of MG garden soil or compost, layed it flat, cut a couple circles in the top, punched some holes in the bottom, and planted right into the bag!

[FourOaks]

Pure Harvest - I appreciate the offer on the excel file. I shoot you my email in a PM in just a moment. I have heard of the book you are referring to as well. Everyone seems to speak highly of it.

I also checked out your forum threads that you mentioned. Obviously you know what your doing. Ill admit that I was pretty much lost. I understand the very basics when it comes to PPM and EC, etc. but that is it. Clearly you have a fine tuned program for your plants.

Bower - Nothing wrong with being thrifty. The bags in white help to keep the soil and roots a bit cooler in the summer heat. For those folks up North, its no big deal. For us in the South, I can't see black bags working out too well. Unless you just stick the water hose in the bag and let it run while the sun is out.

[PureHarvest]

[QUOTE=
I also checked out your forum threads that you mentioned. Obviously you know what your doing. Ill admit that I was pretty much lost. I understand the very basics when it comes to PPM and EC, etc. but that is it. Clearly you have a fine tuned program for your plants.

[/QUOTE]

I'm better than I was a year ago, but still learning.
Would not be as far along if not for folks here on Tomatoville!

[FourOaks]

For those keeping track at home, I have some interesting numbers. Earlier I stated that my recipe should fill approx. 20, 7 gallon bags. Also Pure Harvest asked about labor costs.

So yesterday morning I headed off to the Hydroponics store to fetch more perlite. Made it home and got to work. For yesterdays test, and to get some numbers, I decided to make essentially a half batch. I decided to only use 1 bale of peat moss, and use how ever much perlite was needed.

First I measured out in 5 gallon buckets the quantities of perlite and peat moss. A brand new 3 cu.ft bale of peat moss, from Lowes, filled 6 and 1/2, 5 gallon buckets. A brand new 4 cu.ft. bag of perlite filled 5, 5 gallon buckets. Normally I just measure out as I need the product, so it was interesting to see how much was in each virgin bag to start with.

One thing to keep in mind is that, depending on your source, peat moss could be in a 3 cu.ft. bale, or in a 3.8cu.ft. bale. My local Lowes has switched to the smaller 3 cu.ft. bale. Im not terribly pleased, but it is what it is.

My recipe is 3 to 1. 3 parts peat, 1 part perlite. And lime. I mix the goods in a 27 gallon Rubbermaid tote. A concrete mixer should would be nice. I mixed up the soil and filled up my 7 gallon bags. I filled the bags about 4/5 of the way up. I transplanted better boy seedlings into the bags. I hand wrote a tag for each bag. Each bag was placed on the floor, then all was watered in.

Lets talk about labor costs, which Pure Harvest mentioned. I agree, one should have a general idea. Even if you are a 1 man (woman) show. All in all, I spent about 1:10 measuring, mixing, and transplanting. I felt that I was moving at my typical pace. Not rushed, and not too slow. Just a steady pace.

In an earlier post I said that my full recipe should yield about 20, 7 gallon bags. I mixed a half batch and ended up with 10 bags. So my math worked pretty well in the real world. Yes I will need to make a little more to top of the bags

So 10 transplants took about 1:10. Labor costs at $12.55 per hour (thank you Pure Harvest) My estimates come in, that those transplants cost me $14.64 in labor costs. For anyone interested, you can extrapolate from that. Obviously that does not include product costs.

Another interesting note, I ended up with left over 1/2 bucket of peat, and 3 buckets of the perlite. So if you made a full batch, using 2 bales, and 1 bag of perlite you would still have some leftovers. You could just mix the extra perlite and peat in, or figure out the lowest common denominator.

[Ricky Shaw]

Excellent info, thank you. Morning farm reports, and you know the farmers. I like Tomatoville.

[PureHarvest]

Good stuff.
How much and what kind of limestone do you use?
I need to run numbers using your figures and see if I can save making my own.

[bower]

I was also about to ask about the amount of lime.
I'm also doing a peat based mix this time, but when it comes to lime I generally just wing it. No pH meter, just optimism to carry the decision making process. It would be great to have a recipe.

We get the 3.8 cu ft bales of peat, but I've never seen perlite only in a small bag for a pretty high price. We have no volcanic rock around here, so the 'puffed rock' is coming from a long way and therefore pricey.

[FourOaks]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Good stuff.
How much and what kind of limestone do you use?
I need to run numbers using your figures and see if I can save making my own.

Originally Posted by bower

I was also about to ask about the amount of lime.
I'm also doing a peat based mix this time, but when it comes to lime I generally just wing it. No pH meter, just optimism to carry the decision making process. It would be great to have a recipe.

We get the 3.8 cu ft bales of peat, but I've never seen perlite only in a small bag for a pretty high price. We have no volcanic rock around here, so the 'puffed rock' is coming from a long way and therefore pricey.

Gentleman, sorry for the delay in answering your questions about the lime. As to what kind, I use regular ol' "Garden Lime". Nothing fancy, the cheapest stuff you can find. I believe I paid about $10.00 Its a 40 pound bag. The brand im not sure about, as the bag is pretty badly faded. I think I bought that particular bag a couple years back.

If im not mistaken, I found the "Garden Lime" in the covered outdoor section at Lowes. Most Lowes I have ever been too have a section out there which they keep big bags of fertilizer, weed killers, etc. Thats where I found the Lime, Im confident. If I go by there tomorrow Ill double check.

As to how much... I don't measure. But if I had to guesstimate I would say I use about 1/4 cup per 5 or 7 gallon bag.

I wish I could be more specific, but in my research, I discovered that it probably doesn't matter. Several years back, when I started making my own potting mix, I stumbled across "GardenWeb". Im sure your familiar with that forum. After much reading, and chasing web links, the general conclusion was that roughly a 1/4 cup per 5 gallon bucket. I believe the conclusion, it is almost impossible to over lime your container soil. Unless your pouring in buckets of lime, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

As opposed to buying commerical stuff, like Pro-Mix, this method has got to be cheaper. Sure you have to mix the ingredients and wet it down, no big deal. I have used Pro-Mix in the past, its about the same amount of effort in my opinion. Sure the Pro-Mix has a "soil wetter" in it, but Ill take my chances.

[PureHarvest]

Too little is definitely not a problem. But u can absolutely potentially overdo it. To the point where you will have imbalances down the road as the chemical reactions are occurring with the fertilizers.
Do you mix the amount into each bag or into your master mix?
I was curious which kind because dolomitic is high in mag and calcitic is not. I would also think you would want pulverized because it covers more surface area than pelleted or granular.
Anyway, I will see if I can get promix's recipe. I heard they use both calcitic and dolomitic limestone. Getting some wetting agent would be easy and cheap. Yucca extract would do it.
And then there is the mycorrhizae and biofunigicide that my HP has which could be added later in drench.
I did a rough figure earlier, not counting labor to mix it up or wetting agent/lime, and it came out to half the cost of my Promix HP.
I just hate mixing soils because of the labor, dust, and worrying about getting it homogenous.
But if I could do it in the fall/winter when I am not as busy, that would be a nice savings.

[FourOaks]

Well your right, you can over do it. Anything is possible. I was just getting at the point that I really don't measure and everything so far has worked out. So, your mileage may vary.

As to your other question/comment, its not granular or pellet. It might be dolomitic. I will take a second look at the packaging tomorrow.

I just mix the lime directly into the batch. I have done it both ways, with no difference either way, not that I have noticed.

[bower]

I always seem to have an old bag of garden lime too, it's the dolomite I have though. Usually clumped up, and just like you I don't measure but take a piece I can fit in my hand and crush and sprinkle before mixing with the fork. Probably about the same amount, quarter cup or so per five gallon volume.

Now and then I've had algae start to grow on the surface of some container soil, and when I see that I remove the gunk and sprinkle some more lime. That seems to work.

[PureHarvest]

Ok, I did some more math.

Peat Moss 3.8 cuft bag :$10
Perlite 4 cuft bag: $12
Labor 1 hr: 12.55

Total to make and mix: $34.55 for 7.8 cuft. = $4.42 per cubic foot

Promix HP $30 for 3.8 cuft bale. $7.89 per cubic foot.

So i could save around 44% if I make my own.

Still need to figure on some limestone and wetting agent, but the above calculations tell me I need to go this route.

If my costs above seem low, I get everything at wholesale direct from the distributor due to my parents having a garden center.