Any Coco Grower Questions?

Joy.....Bob uses his fertilizer, epsom salts, AND the dolomite lime. Please ask him since the advice was given by him. I really don't know how to answer all your questions.

darkmoondreamer: I have asked him in a personal email, but he hasn't had the time to answer me yet, you know me, miss questions. LOL I just wanted to make sure before I mess up and fertilize too much ya know?
joy

joy,

don't use the MG spray bottle with my fertilizer. It needs to be mixed in with at least a gallon of water, not mixed as you go.

Bob

Bob: Ok back to the drawing board for me then. I noticed in Lowes they have these spray devices that you can add stuff to and then there is a dial where you can switch it to the strength you want measured into the water as the water goes through the hose, will one of those work? It's not a miracle grow kind and is designed to be used with anything as the dial allows you to adjust how much gets mixed as per ratio. Yeah, I found out that by adding 2 cups of your fertilizer and 2 TBSP of epsom salt and then attatching it to the hose, too much gets dispensed in the MG one, I think. I figured since the plants were dead I'd practice on them first?
joy

No joy, like I said, my fertilizer HAS to mixed in at least one gallon of water. The nutrients will lock up if you do it any other way.

Bob: Ok, well, I will go back to the drawing board then, maybe if I mix it in a gallon of water and then put it in a sprayer? Watering the plants that way?
joy

Then you will probably dilute it too much if it is connected to a hose. If you HAVE TO SPRAY, go buy a hand held 2 gallon sprayer, about $18.00 at Lowes or HD. I use one for pest and disease control but they are great for foliar spraying of fertilizer too.

Bob: I used it up on my daughter's flowers, don't tell her okay? LOL Now, will just use the MG powder like I am supposed to.
joy

How tight should I pack the coco coir into plastic baskets?..I was thinking there was just a little more coir in the package for the 50 baskets.I think I'll have quite a bit of coir left over..Not complaining..I don't want to pack them to much.

Tubby, I was telling Bob earlier this week that the small block of coir he supplies with the seed starting kit is so generous that you could actually fill more like 3 seed starting trays with it. I didn't pack too tightly, and just used what was left in the bucket for other things.

Karen Thank You That is what i did..Figured ya have to leave it loose enough for some air for roots..
I can plant the seeds now.!!!!!....Isn't nice working with coir ..So clean like..Rinse off easy or let dry and it falls off.LOL

Sun is shining but still cold out15 degrees..Lost power yesterday twice 4Hr's first time 5Hr's last time..Burr.!!!

Thanks again
Tubs

Tubs

Karen told you right. Just fill the net pots up firmly but not tight.

Have fun

BocaBob

BocaBob Thanks You got mail
Tubs

Tubby and Karen: I found a really easy way to fill the baskets ya'll. I just soak the coir in a plastic tub, when it has expanded, I dip my baskets in, packing it down a bit, to squeeze out the excess water, a really fast way to fill up the baskets with no fuss, no mess. I had enoug left over to do about three times too, that stuff stretches believe me.
joyce

Tplant, you answered a question some of us had on another thread about transplanting from soiless mix and whether to wash off the old "soil" from the roots before transplanting into coir. Surely I am not the only one who wondered so could you please address this question here too? Thanks. D

Why would you need/want to wash it off? Just leave as much of that rootball in tact, and sink it down into the coir. The rootball it came with will end up being negligible once the roots take hold in the coir.

If it ain't broke, don't break it!

I have to say, that I personally wouldn't worry a bit about rinsing anything off. The coir doesn't have to be 100% pure and clean to do it's job, and any intermingling of coir and dirt would be negligible. More harm than good could come from the rinsing of the roots.

Pugzley even mixed her coir with potting mix she already had and needed to get rid of all together and used that to plant in this year. I would just stick them in, as they are and go from there.

And I already posted instructions for re-sterilizing coco coir SAFELY in the microwave. See instructions again, below:

Coco coir may safely be RE-sterilized by placing damp coir in a large glass bowl. Using your kitchen faucet hose makes this easy. Make sure you have approximately 1 cup of runoff water in the bowl. Nuke on high for 15 minutes.

CAUTION! Bowl will be very HOT! Leave coir in bowl until it cools thoroughly, about 30 minutes. The rising steam will complete the process. NO unpleasant odor whatsoever!

Haha, sorry Devota, I forgot about that. I guess the purity of the coir is very important to some, and I apologize if I seem "light" about the purity concept....It's just that I'm a lazy gardener, and as such, I probably introduce pathogens to my potting environment that aren't good. But GOSH it's alot of work to sterilize potting mix or coir on a large scale.......

I guess it's a personal decision thing then....I will say one thing about non-sterile product....No way was I going to sterilize 100 lbs of Miracle Grow Potting Mix this winter when I used it, BUT I'm convinced that the tons of fungus gnats I had in the greenhouse all winter came from that soil. Some bags had gnats fly out when I opened the bag...

This message was edited Mar 12, 2009 9:57 AM

Y'all have no idea that you are dealing with an OCD person, [giggles]I thought that there might be someone else like me but I guess not. Thanks again.

Devota, no kidding, I am clinically diagnosed with OCD! It just comes out in different ways with me.....For one thing, there was a particularly nasty row of trash Oxalis clover that has been growing along the foundation of my house all my life. I got out last week and dug every single solitary little "nut" out of the ground to ensure it wouldn't grow again. Talk about OCD type working? LOL! It took me HOURS!

Karen, BM, [before meds] I spent an entire day picking Japanese beetles off of every plant, personally send them to their squishy reward, before dropping them into the bag. The strange thing is that though there were thousands of them I havent seen one in my yard since...years since.

Okay, last off topic post guys, I swear.....I got you beat, maybe....BM, I used to spend HOURS by my pond, ready with the net, and would swoop in and immediately get any leaf, redbud blossom, etc. out of the water the minute it would hit it. I sure got alot done in those days though, LOL! Now, apologetically, back to the subject of Coir!

My peppers are in BocaBobs coir planting kit so I'm really not concerned with transplanting them into pots as they will go directly into my EBs when ready in a couple of weeks. All I do is feed them a quarter solution of MG for tomatos about once every two weeks. The center seeds did not seem to take as of yet as they were at least seven years old but you never know with peppers. Like Brugmansia they could take up to 90 days to germinate and I'm in no hurry. The Bells are on the left and the finger types on the right. The center were some old Nu-Mex seeds that I didn't even know I had as I found them in the back of my dresser draw.

Ted nice looking peppers

Ted: Now those are some nice looking peppers. I have a seedstarting kit which I'm going to be planting peppers in today, I want peppers, so I'm not chancing any other method but the coco coir seed starter kit. It's good to see you are posting again and hope you are feeling better.
joy

Devota and Darkmoondreamer: TMI, re:ODC & BM. PDQ your OCD is gonna send you both AWOL.

Now, on the QT, I am still LMBO re: the japanese beetles!

Ya'll like my shorthand?

WHAT

Why didnT you just admit you were constipated and in a hurry? LOL

Ya'll done got me to feeling plumb abbreviated! I dont know what that OCD stuff is but if it is catching, I think I done caught it. Reminds me of one of the sayings of Lewis Grizzard, the humor writer, saying, "Elvis is dead and I aint feeling too good myself." And of course there was his classic, "Shoot low boy's, they are riding shetland ponies."

And speaking of transplanting stuff........when I first moved to this area, I bought a one gallon pot of Jasmine and a one gallon ??Banks rose bush. I dug a one gallon hole in the ground in an area between rocks (you dont just dig a hole in my yard, you have to keep hunting for a place where it is possible to dig one), dropped the one gallon plants into their one gallon holes still contained in their original grow mix. They were not doing well at all. One day I tugged gently on the Jasmine and it lifted right up out of its one gallon hole, all its roots still contained in the one gallon shaped original grow mix. The roots were staying in the grow mix, refusing to leave it. They wonted no part of this limestone stuff between the rocks in my yard.

As to the ??Banks rose bush, it just completely disapeared.........leaving a one gallon hole in the ground. About two weeks later, I spied it laying alongside the road about 50 yards from my house. All its roots were still encased in and gripping tightly to the original one gallon gob of grow mix. Some deer had just picked it up, carried it away, and threw it down when he was through nibbling on it.

So I realized that to garden on this ridge top, I would have to build raised beds. I did that. The helpful nursery lady told me that deer didnt like salvia, dianthus, and snapdragons and that is what I planted in my new raised beds. One morning I looked out in my yard and saw little snapdragon plants scattered around. Deer aint too smart. They dont know that they dont like snapdragons. So they pick them up, taste them and spit them out. Every morning I would gather up my snapdragons and replant them. The amazing thing is that I only lost one snapdragon plant during this fiasco which lasted for about two weeks. Them snapdragons are tough little buggers.

Come on ya'll......join in on the chorus.....Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, nobody knows the sorrow...........

Poor ole Jay...but now we have coir, glorious coir. I am ordering container blueberry
bushes to put in coir. They will love it I know. I have 15 gal containers and I know that will take a lot. By the way, I just set up a 30 gal HEB and one block of Bob's coir nearly filled it to the top. That stuff goes a long way, huh?

I am under the impression that blueberries like an acidic grow mix. If so, you could get by with some of that cheap old nasty peat stuff.

"Peat stuff!" Heresy!
Actually that does make sense because Blueberries also need acid, and other goodies...so I will think about your suggestion, Jay, but just this once. D

Blueberries are waaayyyyyy down on my to-do list. You go first and let me know how it works out. Might save me a buck or two.:-) My stacked pot strawberries are making little berries. Yummy Yummy!

already making berries? So happy for you. Are they in coir?

60% coir/40% perlite. I like real fast draining grow mix and the perlite helps do that for me.

Is perlite expensive? Why do you like it to drain fast? Doesn't coir drain fast enough?

The verti-grow stacked pot system I have had for about 4 years now came with a grow mix of 80% coir and 20% perlite. Im still using the same grow mix without any sign of deteriation and it always drained OK. The EZgro system was shipped with a mixture of about 80% perlite and 20% vermiculite. Im still using that mix in my original 40 EZgro pots. It is a little faster draining mix than the coir which only means it may need an extra watering per day during the heat of summer. Actually, it is kind of hard to see much difference between the two types of mix.

I have 50 more EZgro pots coming to add to the 40 I already have and I wont all of them on the same automatic watering system. So for the new pots, Im adding 40% perlite to 60% coir, figuring the water holding capacity wont be too much different from the 80/20 perlite/vermiculite mix in the original 40 pots and all 90 pots can be watered simultaneously with the automatic system. By next year, I hope to have all pots with the 60/40 coir/perlite mix.

A local Nursery sells a 4 cu. ft. bag of perlite for $24. I think straight coir will be fine but in my case, Im having to adapt the coir into a system already heavy in perlite for automatic watering purposes. Also, I couldnt afford to change over to all new grow mix at this time. But by next year.....................

Jay: Blueberries and strawberries grow really well here, as a matter fact the blueberry bushes grow wild here and need little care due to the type of soil we have, now if you want to grow tomtoes, you'd better be prepared to lime the daylights out of your ground. I'm going to mix my coir with perlite in my hanging baskets of 30 cukes.
joy

Thanks, Jay. I can't see me doing that. I don't want the fertilized water to go through fast but I have a lot to learn. I may agree with you later. D