potting mix frustration
Jonno wrote:
Damn my spellcheckers on strike
Jonno wrote:Yeah, you cannot be sure youve got the whole pot watered
properly
The only way to make sure is to dunk the pot into a larger container
full of water. A lot of these potting mixes are water resistant, they
reject water until its forced into the pores of the "pine bark" or
whatever they use, therefor hard to make water stay. Debco use those
water crystals, making it better but still more expensive.
BTW most potting mixes (Debco is OK) still need to have trace elements
added to them
so the things can start building cells. Thats another story...
0tterbot wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:18:30 GMT, "0tterbot" wrote:
hello,
my first gripe - modern potting mix just seems to be useless!!
stuff does
not grow in it properly!! (i fully expect my one potted tomato to
drop dead
shortly. it's perfectly healthy for now, but with my new set
against Modern
Potting Mix, it surely cannot last!!)
my second gripe is that my last batch had mites in it(!!) i was
having a bit
of a bad day so i used it anyway, but the cuttings died & when i
pulled them
out there were maggoty things in there. (baby mites, i'm assuming.)
now i
don't know what to do about the rest of it. i don't want to spread
mites. if
i cook it in the oven, will the mix still be any use afterwards?
should i
cook it in the oven (or pour boiling water on it) & just dump it &
try the
other bag instead? (which, being Modern Potting Mix, won't be any
use either
whether it has mites or not g. ) or are mites quite all right in
small
quantities in a garden?
on the bright side (i've finished griping now ;-) we have two
loquat (i
believe) trees, which we've essentially ignored. today i realised
one has
some ripe fruit! we ate one - it was fabulous!! so now i feel
rather silly
that i never even watered the poor things - not even once - we
might have
had more fruit (it only had 5 - ahem). the only, i might add, fruit
we'll
probably get from any of our trees this season, as the frost killed
off all
the peaches, apples, etc. next year i am going to do my best to ensure
loquats a go go, they're fantastic (and apparently frost proof). and
furthermore, our second crop of willy wagtail babies has just been
born (in
the aforementioned loquat tree - it might not have many fruits, but is
producing baby willy wagtails quite well g. you'd think with all
my willy
wagtail watching, i'd have noticed a few fruits before now,
wouldn't you?)
kylie
What brand are you buying? If you get the cheap brands as sold by
supermarkets, then expect
problems.
I've found Debco and Amgrow brands to be very good.
the batch with mites (any ideas about that, btw?) is amgrow, funnily
enough :-) not sure if i've ever had debco or not, but it's just that
for the last 10 years or so, i haven't been able to get _any_ that's
nice, squishy & loamy like one used to get. i've got it from various
sources, including that made at one of the "resource centres" (or
whatever it is they call the tip these days) in canberra, & it's all
the same - full of woodchips with barely any dirt-type stuff, dry &
nasty. the "good" stuff seems no better than cheapie supermarket
stuff i (must have) bought at times. some i used while at a
propogation course at the c.i.t. (like tafe) in canberra, they made
themselves & it was much nicer, i must say. i asked our teacher who
confirmed that the recipe for potting mix has, in her experience,
totally changed in recent times - it's "meant" now to be more of a
holding medium than a soil.
the big problem i have with it atm, as i don't have any potted plants
at all atm (except one tomato) is that i grow seeds in it, & they
come up & it's all good for a while, but then the seedlings just stop
growing, but they're often not big enough to plant out yet. some i
have repotted afresh & they have another go, others i just put out
into the garden & hope for the best despite their tininess. those
that live, once in the garden recover completely & start going
gangbusters.
am i doing something wrong?
kylie
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