Medium for seedstarting

What is your favorite medium for starting seeds?

I can tell you what mine ISN'T: I cheated and used the Jiffy brand seed starting mix this year instead of making my own. I think it has a fertilizer in it (didn't notice that until I was on my fifth or sixth bag.......) and I'm now having some mold problems, even with lots of preventive measures (bottom watering, grit applied to surface, lots of air movement, etc.)

I sure hope somebody has some good recipes they post here, because next year I'll be mixing up my own!

I've been using Pro-mix this year. I can't say it's my favorite tho. I usually add some perlite or vermiculite to it to help it drain better.

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Does anybody have any recipes for homemade seed starter? Anybody using plain-old compost?

Dave,

Remember the basic marketing concept KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

With that in mind, and after trying all sorts of mixtures, I went back to a simple soiless mix of peat and vermiculite, mixed half & half. Been the best seed starting year I can remember in quite some time.

http://www.backyardgardener.com/soil.html

Brook: Peat and vermiculite do work well, and I've used that with good success on a lot of my seedlings this year, but it sure does get pricey after you sow thousands of seeds.

I'm looking for a cheap alternative. Thanks for the link, poppysue - it's loading up right now.

Dave

peat and vermiculite? I assume peat means the coarse Canadian sphagnum type? I have several huge packages of it that I bought on sale for $5 each a few years ago....just use it for tilling into my clay soil.

earthboxes says a good mix for using in their boxes is 45% peat, 45% composted wood, and 10% pearlite. I assume composted wood is about the same as very cheap brands of potting mix. It seems nobody gives a very clear definition of a lot of things....sooooooo. That's why nothing is easy:)

Dave
Miracle Gro has a professional mix containing peat, coir, and perlite. I have had very good results with it , even with very small seed .
Bud

Someone one selling blocks of coconut peat thru a catalog. Can't remember the name of the company. It was very cheap about a buck a block. When wet a block expanded to, oh about 8qts or so I'd say. I mixed that with ground vermiculte and it worked very well.

Peat and vermiculite is my standard too like Brook. Once I bought something and had diseases and bugs that took months to get rid of...that was enough of that. I like "germinating mix" from that catalog company (Gardeners Supply or somthing like that) too. But it's expensive.
Dave you have to buy in bulk. Get the cubic yard of peat and the 25# bag of vermiculite. Check around with local landscape contractors and see where they get there supplies. There may be a local bulk supplier nearby.

Chris

I work for DNR and we grow our tree seedlings in greenhouses in containers. Our mix is 60% peat moss, 20% vermiculite and 20% perlite.

One alternative some may be able to use is to check with nurseries that grow in huge quantities (like Dept of Natural Resources). We cannot use our soil but one time and we truck it off to the outer fields and dump it. We really do not like to do that because it actually creates a Peat bog. We cannot use it in our fields for the same reason.
A nursery down the road from me who also grows seedlings sells it for $5.00 a pick-up load just to get rid of it. I bet if you do some detective work, you can find something like it in your own state. Sometimes it even comes with slow release fertilizer and "rejected" seedlings the nursery couldn't use because they are not up to "specs"

Hope this helps!

Weebus

The last time I made a big batch of potting mix it was something like 1/4 "Peat moss" 1/4 screened aged compost 1/4 garden loam and 1/4 vermiculite and a small amount of lime, bonemeal and bloodmeal.I got the resipe from an old organic gardening magazine from the 70's. It worked great for what I was growing at the time; vegetables and a marigolds, I think it was rather rich but it really did the job. The only problem I had was getting the stuff to soak up the water(because of the spagnum moss).
This year I am using a ready made mix with a wetting agent.Being a organic grower I was a little hesitant to use this stuff but there are no wierd mutations..yet.
Has anybody heard anything bad about these polymer wetting agents?