Favorite Seed Starting Mix of 2008

[Luvgardening2]

I use Sunshine Germinating Mix #3. I buy it at a farm supply store and they sell it in the 3.8 cu ft. bales. It is really fine and I really like it. I volunteer at the Arboretum and we started seeds for our Tomato and Pepper Sale in March and they used Pro-Mix BX to start the seeds. I felt it was quite Lumpy. Although, I do use the Pro-Mix BX for my Earthboxes and I like it more than the Sunshine#4.

Nancy

[TomatoDon]

I think you should try that Morgan. I'd suggest this. Get one of this cheap plastic containers from Wal Mart, cut a rectangle out of the bottom, and attach the screen or hardware cloth to that (lay it in the bottom over the cut out and just glue it down) and then you can work with it better. A shallow screen arrangement will be a mess.

This year I took a Sterlite container, a bit larger than my 72 cell potting trays, and put the potting tray in the container and added the potting mix that way. You don't have to worry about spills, and whatever excess you have, just skim it off into the container and when you are through filling the potting tray itself, just pour the "dirt" from the container back into the sack from which it came.

That's what's worked best for me this year.

Don

[Ruth_10]

I make my own. It's something to do when I'm getting the itch to seed but it's too early.

For seed starting, I use 1:1 sphagnum peat moss and fine vermiculite. Sometimes I add a sprinkling of dolomitic limestone to adjust the pH, but sometimes I don't and both ways work fine.

For growing on, I mix:
--2 parts sphagnum peat moss
--1 part vermiculite
--1 part Perlite
--some dolomitic limestone to balance the pH and for the Ca and Mg
--a pinch of kelp or other similar material
--a handful of good compost

The best peat moss I've found is from Premier. No woody chunks. I mix my materials in a big container, then add water. I add water in stages, over several days and with further stirring, to give everything a chance to hydrate.

This works well for me. I haven't worked out the economics yet to see if this is cheaper than purchasing a good quality mix, but it probably is since I buy the ingredients in quantity. It also helps that I have room (basement) to store this stuff.

[patty_b]

I have been using ProMix PGX loosefill for a few years. Waldo's, a greenhouse supply store here in town, is the only place that I have found it. I like this mix so much better than the Schultz or Miracle Grow that I have to use in a pinch. Patty

[FlipTX]

I make my own. It's the same basic mix I use for container gardening, minus the pine bark bits and with less fertilizer. It's 3 parts peat moss, 1 part Turface (a fired clay product), a bit of lime, and a pinch of Hasta Gro granular fertilizer.

This was my first time using it to start tomatoes, but I've used it for starting everything else for the last couple of years.

[feldon30]

I had such poor results with the seed starting mix I mixed up myself that I am afraid to try it again.

[dice]

Of course it's just a tomato, and kept wet, they will
eventually sprout in just about anything, the question
is how well they do once the seeds germinate. I used
chunky potting soil for a few last year, just to see how
they would do in it. They came up slow and didn't look
healthy until they were potted up into the mix of peat,
sand, and compost that I had used for the others. The
chunky stuff works ok for larger plants in containers
(after adding lime, fertilizer, all of the usual stuff to
turn generic potting soil into good tomato growing media).

I do add a little lime when potting up into 4" or larger pots,
but I don't think seedlings in cells or plugs or 2" pots need it
yet.

[TomatoDon]

Morgan, I found some Fafard seed starting mix today in Memphis. Just seeded 63 more cells (7 varieties, Earl's, BWS, Mortgage Lifter, Chapman, Omar's, Brandy Boy, and Pineapple...earlier today counted 200 seeds now up from previous plantings). The texture and quality of Fafard looks to be the best I've tried yet. We'll see how the germination and growth is. I cheated and put a little seaweed solution in the spray bottle I wetted them down with after planting.

Don

[Tom'sson]

I use Gardeners Supply germinating mix with their APS seedstarting system. I've used the little Burpee pellets and think they are even better, but they're sized for their seedstarting system, not the APS system I have. When potting up time comes I use straight potting mix, Ferti-Lome if memory serves.

[tomatoguy]

Speaking of Gardeners' Supply, I bought a couple of nice screens from them a few years back. They are round and about 10 inches in diameter. The screens are 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch, if I recall correctly. I think they are British made. They work great for screening compost or transplant mix. I don't see them in the GS online catalog anymore but they do sell a galvanized compost screen for 20 bucks. That should last a while.

mater

[chai]

I live in northern Calif, zone 9.I did start some seeds in Jan and a few came up and are coming along.Truth be told though the seeds I start in Feb are always best. I just use the pellets that grow in water.I actually tried two kinds this year.The small ones that are very coarse with peat I don't care for as much.The seedlings are sprouting from them now, but it took much longer.I buy the seed pellets that come in refill bags of 72 to be the best size and price.I only put one tomato seed per pellet.Sometimes a few seeds stick together so I get two or even three tomato seedlings growing from one pellet and I have torn them apart when they get bigger and it's been fine.I don't even have them in a south facing window, they face east.In fact the window is a large corner one that faces east and north and north light is the worst! Most all of the tomato seeds come up.I have had worse luck with some types of flowers and will ask advice on that at some point, but growing tomatoes I have found to be pretty easy.I place the pellets in round clear plastic chocolate chip cookie containers that I have saved from a local store.I can fit 14 pellets in one container.The containers are 6 or 7 inches tall and the seedlings get taller than the container by the time I transplant them which I do at the end of March or early April.I prefer the containers I use to the large rectangular black bottomed ones that hold 72 pellets because mine are completely clear and somehow that gives more light, and mine are taller which gives the seedlings support as they grow taller.I love to give my friends seedlings but don't really know anyone who enjoys gardening as much as I do.I grow squash, cucumbers and melons this way and also sunflowers, coneflowers, cosmos, and zinnias this way too as well as other flowers.Most stuff I plant everyone else finds pretty easy to grow.I haven't been able to get a black-eyed susan vine to sprout even though I hear they are easy.I love them and bought one at a nursery at the local drugstore but they wanted 17 dollars for a small plant and I can't help but think that was alot.PLus they haven't had any since.I tried fish emulsion on the seeds which alot of people said would help but it didn't.Anyway,I thought of using the chocolate chip containers cuz one gardener in the midwest told me she used old angel cake containers and her seedlings were incredibly hardy.I use the containers over and over and have friends save them for me.I probably have about 100 different kinds of tomatoes, maybe a bit less, but over the past 5 years I've been doing this I buy seeds online and they all sound like sweet little orphans one can't live without.I've heard many say that they got seeds from Brad -is this the Brad from Wild Boar farms?[I think that is the name] The one with the famous tye-dye Berkeley striped tomato and others with such great names as freckled girl ?! I didn't see that any seeds were for sale on the farms' website.How does one go about receiving these seeds.I am out of the loop! this is my 2nd post here so sorry if I 've gone off topic.Just curious to know...back to using just the pellets and water-lots of my tomato seeds come up in less than a week. anyway,good luck all-Chai

[Hairy Moose Knuckles]

I start mine off in the peat pellets and transfer them into Vital Earth Resources Ultra Blend when the first true leaves form. Here is the list of it's ingriedients. Canadian Sphagnum Peatmoss, Aged Rice Hulls, Horticultural Perlite, Premium Compost, Aged Pine Barch Mulch, Earthsafe Organic Fertilizer, Dolomitic Lime, wetting agent, and Vitazyme. I have used this for a couple of years, as matter of fact, I bought several bags and I am now just running out. I hope I can still find it as it has been working great for me.

[hoping4tomatoes]

I use the Gardeners Supply germinating mix and APS system. It works wonderfully! Seeds up in usually just a few days. They make a great root ball in here too. The only trick is to transplant before the roots grow into the capillary mat. I tried cheaper systems to grow more (Burpee)....but it failed miserably. This system is fool proof, literally! I won't switch again!!! To your point, I do think the self watering part is a huge success contributor, but the mix is awesome too, very fluffy! I think it allows the quick germination....

[ddrsheden]

After reading the posts here it sounds like a lot of people go through a lot of work just to start seeds in something which the plants will only be in for a few weeks. I have been starting mine in jiffy pellets and they have worked well. No mess and execellent germination,

[ronbrew]

I found a great mix this year thanks to Craig. The brand is Sun Gro. I could not get the one Craig uses because very few people in the West Coast even carry the brand. But they have two potting soils that are very good and soil less. They are both called Black Gold potting mixes, one though has coir (coco fiber). I mix half of the reg. with half that has the coco fiber. It's worked out really well because it's very light yet when you water it absorbs very quickly and doesn't bead like lots of other moss based products out there. With the added Coir it holds water like I've never seen. You many times water the plants and it doesn't even drain, yet somehow the roots don't seem to drown. For me the problem I've had in the past with mixes has been they dry out too often and stress the plants. The other problem I had last year was I would use a mix that had too much fertilizer in the mix. I found that some of my plants would barely grow and then you would start to see leaves move from a T to a V and then get curled tips. Once that happens it's death to the plant. With this new mix almost everything I've transplanted into the mix has done really well. In the past I also have mixed my own and I will still say Sun Gro is hands down been my favorite. If your in CA good luck finding it though. There is only one hydroponic store that carries it and I never knew they even existed until I called from the phone book. Another thing is if you go to their website almost all of the stores they mention they distribute to don't. The one place I found wasn't even listed on the website so I would rec. just calling Hydroponic stores if you are interested.