Which Seed Starting Potting Soil

[Bladefan]

Naysen, try GrowBiz in Rocklin, they have tons of awesome stuff!

[z_willus_d]

Oh happy day, I found a local distributor for Pro-Mix today (they don't carry Metro-Mix sadly), and they were willing to sale me a bale of Pro-Mix PGX and a 2nd of the FPX. Neither had the bio fungicide improvements, but I was happy to take what I could get. They normally wouldn't sale to an individual like myself, but their policy allowed it since there's no retailers in the area that offer those products. Hanging out in their industrial lot at Will call waiting for my bags, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the millions of tons of various bagged mixes and heap piles they had everywhere. Oh, what one could grow with all that potential energy!

I potted up my seed bundles tonight, and I'm hoping for some success in the next several days. I'm trying the dense planting method.
-naysen

[z_willus_d]

Thanks Bladefan, I'd definitely check them out. I've not heard of them, but I work over that way, so I'll have to stop by on my way back one of these evenings. I'd still like to purchase a bag of the Pro-Mix BX offering, as the distributor wouldn't offer me that line siting that it was locally.
-n

[sheysd1]

Hi !..........I might be doing this seed starting thing all wrong but,..........all I use is Ocean Forest Potting Soil and all my seedlings come up and thrive in it. I am using it now with Craigs dense planting method and I have had perfect results.

It's not seed starting mix but it works for me.

[Keiththibodeaux]

Originally Posted by sheysd1

Hi !..........I might be doing this seed starting thing all wrong but,..........all I use is Ocean Forest Potting Soil and all my seedlings come up and thrive in it. I am using it now with Craigs dense planting method and I have had perfect results.

It's not seed starting mix but it works for me.

If the seeds come up and thrive, you are not doing it all wrong.

[dice]

You could probably call these people and ask if they carry
Pro-Mix or Sun Gro products:
http://www.idiggreenacres.com/soil.html

(Sun Gro products: http://www.sungro.com/products.php)

You can drill down from the Sun Gro page, and they give
you a lot of information about the makeup and applications of
the different product lines.

L&L Nursery Supply in Stockton may carry this stuff, but I do not
know if they sell retail. (For some of these places that sell supplies
by the pallet load, asking for one bag of something is like
walking into a convenience store and asking the clerk if you
can buy one peanut.)

[mysidx]

Has anyone used the fer ti-Lome seed and cutting starter mix, and if so how were the results?

My wife bought a small bag of it, and not sure whether to use it or not.

[erlyberd]

I use a sterile, light and airy, soiless mix with some peat but mostly vermiculite in the mix. Brand name does'nt matter and price means nothing. This is strickly a seed starting mix. Perhaps germination mix would be a better term. The seedlings have all the energy they need for the first week or two before I pot them up into a homemade mix that is heavy in compost and/or composted manure.

I know it's an old thread, but I wanted to add my two cents in case anyone finds it helpful. I've found the following to be pretty good:

* Nature's Seedling Mix. It's very low on nutrients (so you need to add some before too long); so, I added potassium sulfate, basalt rockdust, and a 7-7-7 fertilizer, and that worked out very well for me. I think the 7-7-7 fertilizer caused some mold, though. Anyway, seeds germinated very well indoors in this mix (whether or not I amended it as I said). It's very soft stuff, and it's not full of wood chips like some mixes. The even fertilizer I used didn't burn plants or seedlings, and the potassium sulfate would have helped there, too (plus, the potassium made for stronger seedlings). High nitrogen fertilizers aren't recommended for seedlings. Actually, people usually don't recommend any fertilizer for seedlings, but I found the kinds I used helpful (I do know what it's like without them). I used 16-20 ounce cups for containers that year; so pre-amending the soil was more practical, since they were to be in the containers longer.
* Worm castings with a little peat moss mixed in. I used this in our unheated Strong Camel greenhouse to start seeds in this spring. I didn't amend it. It worked great and drained excellently while not drying out super fast. The plants didn't need extra nutrients added until they were in there too long anyway (at which point they needed extra phosphorus and maybe potassium to a lesser degree). I bought the mix from someone local for a few dollars per 25lb bag, I think. I found him on Craigslist. I grew the tomatoes in regular seed trays a bit on the large side (except for Missouri Pink Love Apple, which was in a foam cup). I didn't put them in larger containers before transplanting. I started over a hundred varieties this way.

[DutchOverflow]

I have always used Rapid Rooter peat plugs for everything in the past they work great and are already inoculated with beneficial microbes to boost plant growth for the life of the plant. I got mine off amazon for I think 11$ for 50 plugs and you just bury them in your pot or in my case coco coir and they are good to go. It took me 5 days and they were rooting out the bottom of the plugs then I transferred them into solo cups.

[Ricky Shaw]

*a fungus that grows in association with the roots of a plant in a symbiotic or mildly pathogenic relationship.

I use the ProMix HP with mycorrhiza, and also believe those microbes make a difference.

[DutchOverflow]

they are amazing I have tested it out with my clones which I cut and place in a mister bucket and the buckets I use "bennies" or beneficial microbes in the roots are double but the key if you don't grow in soil is you need to feed them so I use flora nectar which is a water soluble sugar which not only feeds the microbes but helps with fruit production and taste for the fruit. I also use a product called hygrozyme which is also a microbe inoculant that feeds off of dead root matter so it helps ward off root rot etc.

[shatbox]

1) diatomaceous earth, It sounds scary at first but no damping off is nearly impossible and gorgeous white roots. bottom water or top water gently.
2) rock wool. EVERYTHING sprouts so easily. Plus if you want to transplant into cups as they grow up it's easy to transplant. Bottom water

Both are "hydroponic" which means water soluble fertilizer is used. Try it out on a few plants and see if you like it.

[Wvabob]

Perhaps this is the wrong forum, but would like feedback on what soil is recommended when transplanting seedlings to pots?

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by Wvabob

Perhaps this is the wrong forum, but would like feedback on what soil is recommended when transplanting seedlings to pots?

I add my own compost to whatever soil I have on hand -- from last year's pots, the carloads of soil I dug up from my community garden plots (which will probably be turned into another parking lot now that it's no longer a community garden), even soil dug up from the yard. I don't use my compost for seed starting because it still has weed seeds, and I don't want anything competing with the seeds I intentionally planted. Of course, that means that I'm always weeding my pots!