getting ready for the test in seed starting

and janice is such a pain the @#$%&*. however i will amend my post to read 2 red penna in each then one each of the rest.

how she can say that i am attachment challenged when i have been married for 40 years. LOL

while i am at it i might as well try to show you a picture of the new ten gallon containers i have bought for my container gardening this year which will replace the 5 gallon ones i have used in the past. figjured the plants would hve more room in this one.

each container is 16 inches across and 14 inches deep.

here is another view

hows that janice?? and be lon time next sunday.

...how she can say that i am attachment challenged when i have been married for 40 years....

That is awesome! Congratulations!!!

I may be a PITA, but "...2 red penna seeds in both, one each of sandul moldovan, one each of eva purple ball and one each of orange strawberry" still only comes to 5 plants each in 6 cells. YOU ARE HOLDING OUT ON US!!!

And the chances of my being on time on Sunday are slim to none...

My peppers are very happy in the coir and will probably be there a couple of more weeks because of construction. I'm happy with the coir?

now i see what you are getting at. i forgot that i had a space on each of the kits so i put a sun gold in each one. that should do it right??

now that i d-mailed you with a new time i won't hveto hear all your nagging and crying about the early hour.

LOL - I knew if I could count 6 on one hand we had a problem. (I knew you were holding out on us. Hrmph!)

NEW TIME??? Gotta run and check my d-mail, but that won't stop the whining and the nagging - I'll just find a new issue...

Oh, Tp they look terrific! Seems like forever in our future, especially with a drop to 20 degrees last night! And me hoping to get my lettuce planted tomorrow. Am I just dreaming?

i'm sitting here staring at the tetona spinach and my tom thumb lettucve which i have been wanting to try for the past two years but never had enought time or room. will try this year though.

10:30 reservations

o.k. 10:30 it is.

bob's buckets are winning so far. have two tomato seeds gerinated. one is a sun gold and the other is a orange strawberry janice was good enough to give me.

will take pictures when they are a little bigger.

Okay Frank ... I'm following your progress. :)

I potted up my 8 largest seedlings on Tuesday night - 5 from the standard seed-starting mix, 2 from the sponges, 1 from the coir.

There will be more going up this weekend, we will see who fares the best.

PS - I have already lost 2 seedlings in the sponges. I personally think the water distribution in those is very irregular because of the size. I would NEVER use them again. I used the small sponges in the past and they were great, but these really stink. I see no advantage to them for veggie germinations what-so-ever.

Thanks ... that's very good info. :) I almost bought those, but they were back ordered so I canceled. :)

I also find that the hole in the center is WAY too big. The seeds fall too deeply into the sponge and take forever to germinate, and you need to cover the hole with dirt, or the seed is exposed to light. You made a wise choice to cancel!

Thought I'd show my peppers in BocaBobs seed starting kit and they are doing very well. I can not plant them yet because of the construction inspector that has not shown up as of this time.

My peppers have grown huge in his tray. Do you think this would happen in the plugs or a Parks bio dome? No way! The roots would not have enough room. These peppers are almost ready to flower. I really think the tests are over and his kit is by far the best. What other would allow me to grow such large plants in a starting tray? I know it's the coir plus the spacious slotted cups that are keeping my season alive. I have only another eight inches till the gro light can be lifted no higher so that inspector had better get here PDQ! I defy any other seed planting kit to do better? Herb and Sequee you can try all you want but you can't beat or deny these results? I'm sure I could not achive this with any other kit!

Those are beautiful pepper plants!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous Tplant. I rushed mine out way before they got that size and got aphids and flea beetles for my reward. Your larger plants will stand up to the pests better so it's a good thing.

Wow, Tplant, those are great. Almost as great as mine. LOL! I've got mine in BB's seed tray and they are huge and green and glossy. I've never had pepper sprouts like these before. I'll get a pic tomorrow to show you. They're only about 3 weeks old since germination and the leaves are absolutely huge and there are tons of them, they are so wide that I had to move some of them around because they're shading each other. I can't imagine any other seed starting apparatus doing anything better than this one, I am not that experienced, but I know great when I see it.

Last year when I tried to grow peppers, I got a few that were the size of a peanut. I have high hopes for them this year.

So how old do pepper plants need to be to plant outside? If I keep these in the seed trays for 7 or 8 weeks, they'll be up to the ceiling. :)

I'm so darned happy I could skip.

Ok, I couldn't wait to show you these pics so I just took some.

I so wish I could post more than one picture in one post here.

Another pic of peppers.

Look at the width of these leaves. You can tell because of the holes in the seed tray. I've never seen anything like this before. Not that I've seen that much.. but even so, I think it's amazing.

they look great

Pugzley -- I've been doing exactly as BocaBob has been telling us plus I add a quarter TEASPOON OF MIRACLE GRO FOR TOMATOS DILUTED IN ONE GALLON OF WATER. This I do every ten days and water every three or four depending on the mix. The tray holds one gallon of water easily and is quickly absorbed. Now, because of their size, I water consistently every three days. If that inspector doesn't show up this week I'll have indoor grown peppers.

Thanks Herbie -- It is a far superior method.

I've been using BB's fertilizer (water soluable) at 1/4 strength, bottom watering them like you are. I'm really looking forward to growing them this year, but I really hate putting them outside with all the bugs, they're so perfect while inside. Gotta kick them out of the nest at some point though.

t-plant - you are probably right. i floundthe same probloem with the park sponges as sequee did and that was the whole in the swponges are way to deep and as a matter of fact this morning after not seeing any germination in the six park sponges i gently took a pencil and probed around the whole and i found tht indeed i was getting germination but it wold surely not make it if i didn't "dig it out"

this is a picture of my ulta hots after i gave them a shot of fertilizer last week.

the two on the left were started in my store bought seed starting mixture and repoted into the 4 inch container with the same store bought mixture. the other two were started in BB's in bucket with the coir and then when i repotted them i placed the bucket into the 4 inch container and added more coir.

like i said. the perk sponges did not live up to what they claimed. in fact, i junked the whole set up this morning. in retrospect, i should have ordered the smallest sponges instead of the largest because with the larger sponges i had no container large enough to repot the big sponge. if i had the smaller one i would have put them into a 4 inch container.

what i like about the coir is its ability to hold moisture. i had to water my store bought soil three times as much as the coir.

sequee and i did not start this experiment to disprove bob's method but only to compare his to what i normally used and the park sponges. i will most likely use the coir to start the seeds next year but i would haveto know how much the coir would cost to fill my ten, 10 gallon containers. i wsetn to sams club yesterday and saw that the MG potting soi that i always use is now about 11 dollars for a rather large 52 quart bag. one bag will [probably be only good for one of the 10 gallon containers and then there is the job of hauling it home and getting it onto the deck. with the coir i am sure it is much easeir to handle but i nedd to know the cost of the coir and the shipping befroe i make a commitment.

here is the picture

Those peppers look great, Herbie, you did a nice job on those.

I have spent a lot of money on potting mix this year and it is a back breaker. I'm using my coir blocks as an amendment because it's so hot and dry here, I'm hoping that it will help retain moisture in the pots and bags. It does beat lugging all those bags of soil around, ask my back. ouch! I can get about 15 gallons of coir out of one 5kg block once it's hydrated. And I agree, shipping is definitely a concern when shipping items that heavy over long distances.

Herbie

Pugzley is correct. A hydrated 5kg block of coir will fill 3.5 (5) gallon containers. Check your D-mail

bob - i saw the d-mail. thanks. that is good news to hear that 1 block will fill 3 and 1/2 5 gallon containers

i just posted these are on the tomato forum but wanted to put it here also since i started testing on this forum.

these are my sun gold tomatoes. these were all grown in boca bob's coir. i ran out of the coir so as the plants got biggger i ust filled in with my regular mix. as i said, these are all sun golds. i planted some orange strawberry and red penna in my regular mix also and they are not doing nearly one third as well as the coir. the same is true with my eggplants which i planted in my regular seed starting mix. they are also smaller than the tomatoes and they were planted probably 3 weeks before the sun golds.

all in all i would say that bob's method worked better than my store bought stuff and the park sponges. thecoir is also much easier to keep moist than regular seed starting mix.

where's the picture Herbie? I want to see those maters, LOL!

jeeze, i cannot believe idid itagain. here are the plants

Looking good! Do you like the Sungolds? I may have to try them next season.

darkmoon - if i had to have only one vegetable it would be the sun golds. they are the sweetest i have ever tasted.