As per prior request I will try to answer some questions. I'll be happy to answer any questions to the best of my knowledge. My experience so far has been excellent as there is no stale odor, unless you use stinky fertilizer or let the unused portion stand in water for days on end in which bacteria from the stale water builds up, no dirt imbedded in hands or behind fingernails, no allergies due to dust but most important great results. One of the biggest features for me is the fact that it only weighs ten or twelve pounds when dehydrated and not sixty pounds or even forty pounds in bulk bags. That was a serious problem for me because of my health and the more I was forced to carry the weaker I became. That is the curse of Post Polio Syndrome. The harder I work the weaker I become so you can understand my reasoning and gratitude. I just set the EB where I want it and use a large tube to hydrate it which gives me enough coir for one and a half patented EBs. I add two cups dolomite lime, two cups 10-10-10 and now half cup epsom salt as per Bob's advice and that is it.
Any Coco Grower Questions?
Thanks Ted! Much needed thread!
Here we go, thanks Ted! I suspect we may get a lot of hits here. Me first. How will I store the coir in the winter, dry or wet, in the EBs or in plastic bags? D
This message was edited Feb 27, 2009 12:43 PM
Something sweet I learned about Coconut Coir....
Until I get my new wheelbarrow in, the only thing I had to hydrate was a 5 gallon bucket. I hydrated much more than I needed. That wet, soppy coir has been sitting in a bucket, in water, for over 4 weeks now inside a building and is still as fresh as a darn daisy. Not sour, not rotted, not nuthin'. Just the same as the day I did it. Smells fresh, light and clean. Could you say that about potting mix? Yep, didn't think so, LOL!
Just found this forum today and am so excited about it!
I've never planted in coco coir but have some on order. I plan on growing tomatoes in the 5 gal bags. I remember seeing on a different thread about tomato plants that are supported by vine clips attached to twine. Can somebody explain this further to me please? I've haven't done vegetable gardening in containers before.
Goldfinch, that was me....here is the post:
Read this thread, and I give complete instructions.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/953870/
Karen, I had not seen that post. Awesome! I need something like that for my tomatoes and I will do a smaller one for peas.
Before I go on, here are some strawberries (Tribute) that I planted in a stacker three days ago. I know this is not the right time in my area to plant strawberries but my grandson loves them so I'll re-order at the proper time in November.
Ted which size is that planter, and also, do you need that pole in the middle when you have it on a deck and with a bottom tray?
Perfect - thank you!
Tplant, is tribute a "day neutral?"
This is a close up. Ican still add four more on top. Of course they are in coir and I used 9 mos Dynamite fertilizer. At first they did not have any leaves but they are laoded now. I likwe the stackers for strawberries because the berries don't llike wet feet. As I water from the top the water drips down to the bottom tray which is a little resevoir and holds the water for a few hours and just sucks it up. Herbs, petunias,pansies most anything would love these including Tumbler tomatos. I can just picture the mass of bright red tumblers mixed with the Yellow Tumblers from Thompson & Morgan.
Darkmoon ---Yes you do need the pole if you intend to grow higher but I would use it any way just in case someone accidently bumped into it. You can always snip off the top if you want?
Devota-- I don't know as it was all I could find for my zone 10 so beggars can't be choosers? Must find out...
Another question, Tplant. How much water would you say the strawberries in coir in the grow stacks need each day? I'm setting up a drip for mine and I am curious. I know theu're all different.
I water mine every other day so far. Don't know about a constant drip system as that might get their feet wet? Try it for awile and see how they do. Biggest problem with overwatering is "Red Rust" where the leaves start to turn red and then dry up so keep a sharp eye on them and if you see any showing such sign destroy immearieately as it spreads quickly.
Thanks.
WOW! I didn't think this thread would take off so quickly??? Okay!! "Let's have fun and pray for sun?"
Devota,
I actually mixed up too much coir when I was potting my seedlings. I left it in my mixing tub and put it in the closet. Well, it dried out to a fine powder. I figure if it came dry, it can be stored dry, too. So, at the end of my season, I'll let it dry out in my eBuckets and dump it into plastic bags for storage.
One thing I have noticed about the coir -- ants seems to like it as well as we do. if I store it outside, I know they'll set up shop. But I discovered a remedy for that, too. A coupla pots of boiling water poured through that coir will take care of ANY ant colony doing business there. And, as someone (TPlant?) mentioned somewhere else, the core of the coir (no pun or anything else intended here...) holds heat for awhile! I mean as hot as when you first pour the water through it, it stays hot for about 15-20 minutes afterward. That's a great thing to know in the summertime!
Hi
Both tristar and tribute are day neutral. I am going to plant both in my
stackers. I have already made one big mistake, I only ordered one.
Will be starting my seeds soon. One question, do you just ignore
all that PH stuff with the coir.
Annie
Hmmmmm! I've not had the ant problem yet but I always did with Jungle Growth but they did not do any damage?
Gymgirl, all that makes perfect sense to me. I wonder why the ants like it, maybe it's so easy to move through but they surely couldn't build tunnels that would remain sturdy. We have pissants here that come into the house. Now I like ants as a species but I despise them as individuals. Battle them every summer in the kitchen!
Yes Annie I did for now because the PH is a neautral 6.5. so don't be concerned.
This message was edited Feb 27, 2009 5:38 PM
fbded, I just ordered my tristars. They will go in a stacker with Bocabob's water fert. This will be my first experience with a drip system. Bob has made a lot of stuff available, including this wonderful coir.
I have been storing coir for the past four years in a trash barrel and container like you see here. Have had no stink problem and if the coir is damp when placed in these containers, it will still be slightly damp the following season when I open the containers. The white specks is the perlite I mix with the coir. The perlite is not necessary.....its just a habit I have of adding it to every thing.
This vertigro stacking container system is four years old and came with a grow mix of 80% coir and 20% perlite. That is still the same 4 yr old coir you see in this picture with the tiny convovlus seedling that I planted 3 days ago. I have left the grow mix in these grow poles over winter without plants and if you let the coir completely dry out, wind will blow some of it away. Watering about once a week would prevent that.
I got the crazy idea of planting some kind of cover crop in the pots to over winter and add to a compost pile in the spring. Maybe something like buckwheat. Just another idea I haven't acted on...yet. Or, Of course, winter vegetables is an even better idea. I recently saw a photo of some colorful lettuce that was allowed to flower and go to seed and it was beautiful!! Prettier than some flowers. Im thinking we shouldnt let this coir stuff rest during the winter but keep replanting something in it all year long. So far, I havent seen any deteriation or "packing down" with this 4 year old coir.
Between you Jay and you Gymgirl I have no more worries about how to store the coir.
Devota..........your stackers are EZgro and do not have the "self-watering" feature built into them like Bob's Nancy Jane stackers do. It is best to set up a daily watering schedule. Your stackers will be acting basically like 6 of Bobs grow bags stacked vertically. Bob waters once a day with the water/fertilizer mix. The coir will maintain enough moisture from one day to the next in most cases except some extremely hot and windy summer days. I dont think you can overwater the coir mix. It just pass's any excess water on through the stack while still maintaining its porous nature and supplying oxygen to your plants. If the weather is extremely hot, dry, and windy, just run another shot of water thru the stack.
Where I live, the summers can be brutal. Constant winds suck as much moisture from the plants as the hot sun does. Strawberries dont seem to have too much foliage so they probably will use up a lot less water than something like tomato's. It is a judgement thing that you will quickly learn to make depending on the local weather conditions and what type of plants you have in the stack's. During one summer, I had those four Verti-gro stacks (20 pots, 80 plants) so loaded with large bushy flowers that I had to set the automatic watering system to 3 times a day. My mind was at ease because I knew that the plants that needed that much water was getting it and other plants that didnt need it was not being drowned or overwatered because of the porous nature of the coir grow mix.
Hey Jay, that answers my question about how often but I will still need to figure out how much. I see the disperser pots on the top of your stacks have a notch cut out, which also makes sense, but I wonder how much, [gallon, 2 gallons] does it take to water them thouroughly.
Jay, you've been using coir for 4 years and you're just now letting on? Where you been, buddy? YOU'VE GOT ANSWERS!
Devota: my ants are the same as yours -- the kitchen "sugar" ants. I think you're right about the outside ants not being able to build a sturdy structure in it, too, so, no worries here. And, as long as I CAN boil water, I won't have an ant problem.
OT: Do ya'll realize I haven't sprayed ONE thing for bugs in my veggie garden the whole Fall season since I sowed seeds and put down seedlings in November (except MG liquid fert, twice -- and I didn't see any real difference, either)? And short of the colony of small snails that are munching a few holes in my beet greens (they don't know this yet, but I've got a plan for them, too...), I haven't had any damage worth writing home about.
I have had favor from God! And that's my final answer.
Linda
Devota.........I can see how that little pot looks suspicious sitting up there on top of everything. Here is a pitchur of one of them. It is not for dispensing anything, it is for diffusing. The type of mixes used in these vertical system is soft and fluffy stuff and if you hit it with a strong blast of water from a hose, you can blow about half of it out of the pot. As you can see from this photo, the diffuser pot is passing on the water you put in it. If you are watering your stack with a garden hose and without some form of diffuser on top, you just have to be careful and use a gentle spray. I use a gentle spray pattern and put some in the top diffuser untill water starts dripping out of the bottom pot or sometimes I run the spray up and down the stack while spinning the stack and water all the idividual plant sites. The idea is to just saturate the stack with water and let the excess drip to waste. If you wont to be frugal, you can arrange something under the bottom pot to catch most of the drip. That dripping overflow will still have some good fertilizer in it to use on your other plants. Maybe you could just "stob" your grow pole into the middle of your little onion patch and let the overflow water the onions.:-)
.......and here is my version of a home made jury rigged catch as you catch can drip catching system at the bottom of some vertical stackers. I use a big turkey baster to suck the water out of that pan and squirt it into another container. Seemed like a good idea originally but now I got too much stuff going on and I just let it drip to waste.
Okay, Jay so you really can't tell me how much water it takes to get it to finally run out of the pot. Yore gone ter make me werk fer it.
Thanks for the photos. I may have to consider saving but we'll see.
Linda, Devota thought you were outside working on those Ebuckets, girl.
Gymgirl..........I have been playing around with different grow mixes for about four years and just recently decided that coir was the finalist in my trials.......the WINNAH!! COIR!! Watching Bob's success with the coir down in Florida was impressive and coincided with some conclusions of my own so I am difinitely a coirboy now.But a word of caution........I am not an expert on anything gardening........especially vegetable gardening. I just like flowers mostly and enjoy playing around with the technical and mechanical aspects of the vertical growing systems. I can help out some of you with some aspects of the vertical growing systems but in other matters of gardening I must defer to opinions such as Bob's or Tplants or yours and other experienced gardeners. As a ferinstance, here is a picture of one of my bok choi's in one of my vertical systems. It is forming seeds. Does that mean it is bolting and going to get bitter and worthless? I am really dumb about vegetable growing and it is going to take lots of coaching from everyone to make a vegeboy out of me. If these vege's dont co-operate with me, I may switch back to being a full time flowerboy.
Jay, I just ordered 6 more EzGros for my other strawberries. Yippee!!
Geezzzz Devota. I am so sorry! I should have warned you. Vertical gardening is one of the most habit forming addictions known to mankind.:-) There aint no such thing as a "recovering" garden verticalizer. You are hooked for life! And I fear for Tplant too, down there in sunny florida. He is already dreaming and visualizing little tumbler tomato's tumbling from a vertical system. That big Agrotower system has 6 grow holes per pot and can be stacked at least 6 pots high and is deep enough to plant oak trees in and............wait a minute......I am starting to hyper-ventilate......I gotta go breathe in a bag............
Hey, Ya'll,
Carpe dium. I've been asking the DH to take down the doghouse he built before he married me. It sits in the corner of the yard next to the fence. I built my little compost pile against the side wall of the house, the back wall of the fence and put a board between a stairstep he had built in the dog pen. Well, the dog escaped (thank God!) before I got there and the roof of the dog house was being used to support this humongous palet of 4 x 4. This platform supported several potted plants and served a purpose until the pressboard roof started caving in.
Well, this morning he left home --- EARLY... and I saw my opportunity! I found a small sledgehammer and knocked it down. That was the easy part. Getting that palet off the top all by myself without further damaging my 2 compressed disks was the real challenge. But, I watched enough McGiver episodes to learn about leverage, so I used the shovel as a lever and pivoted and tilted until I got it down (and not on top of myself).
Well, my little compost pile that was 3' x 4' is now almost 5' x 5'! Of course, the DH hasn't been back there yet, so if you hear a scream, ya'll come running, ya heah?
I'm taking a lunch break right now, and will go finish cleaning my area. If I have any strength left in my back to bend over buckets, I'll post pics later. Hugs!
Linda
Linda,
If yours is anything like my DH he probably won't notice til a month goes by and then you can say "It has been down for a while. You never noticed?"
Hi everybody,
I"ve been very busy, thanks to all of you. Here's a good test to watch. I planted 5 bean seeds in each of the three pockets of the 12 inch stacking planter stacked 5 high on a 5/8 in rebar. That's 75 plants, let me repeat that, that's 75 plants on 1 square foot of our earth. They are just germinating today. In coconut coir, of course. If this works, the planet is saved.!!!!!!!!!
BocaBob
Prepare to be amazed, y'all. What kind of beans, Bob?
Good old regular bush green beans