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container ATTN: Best Container Planting Mix?

TheJollyRancher

TheJollyRancher

Hey everyone,
This thread one goes out to growers that have a bunch of plants in containers and have done fairly well with your planting mix. I grow in containers about 95% of the time (due to space restrictions) and have tried a few different mixes but haven't had truly fabulous success with any one type. One type that is having some promise is a cactus mix that I found at Home Depot. It seems to be draining well but holding enough moisture for the roots...

It is getting near the time for me to put the pepper plants outside ...I would like to try something else as far as soil just like I did last year...

Any recommendations?
 
Here is what I mix into a big container:

25L medium quality potting mix, which has water crystals in it
18L coco peat
4L vermiculite
4L perlite

Seems to work alright for me.
 
Last year I used a standard potting mix I got from my local nursery mixed with soil I got from a local recycling plant. Used them in 50-50 combination in the container. The soil was 40% cushion sand and 60% compost. Seemed to work well for me last year and I am going to use this same combination this year.
 
I have had good sucess with premium potting mix but its pricy. It also seems to run out of steam fairly fast.

I now use about 60% Premium potting mix, 10% sand 20% Peat, 10% Peirlite and some water crystals added in there. I also am experimenting with a handfull of fire ash in the mix as well. The plant i have just put in it is taking off like a rocket.

I also mulch with either old dry horse poo or Lucern hay chalf....... I prefer the Poo!

cheers
 
I usually buy pro-mix or other peat based soilless mix, and I mix in manure when the plants get outside. Coconut coir is a good renewable alternative to peat but using it straight may limit you to certain nutrients specific for coir. I use it as more of a soil additive than a base.
I try to stay away from the water holding crystals with peppers, since I find pepper plants like when the soil goes through a good dry phase between waterings, and it may also be one of these "organic" issues:)
 
I did a little experiment last year a combined several potting mixes with local sand. There wasn't much difference in plant growth between the different mixes (I was using slow release tomato fert) but there was a BIG difference in water absorption and retention. The mulchier looking stuff dried out superfast and water would run down the internal sides of the container, instead of soaking in.
Going compost/sandy soil in my containers this year with less fertilizer.

Any thoughts on the appropriate use of perlite, etc. - Is it for aeration of the roots? How much is enough?
 
I've found similar mixes for as low as $20 CND, you just have to watch out because there are a lot of cheap mixes out there with sticks and chunks of bark etc.
 
80% coco coir
+ 20% perlite
----------------
100% pure win


Coir is a hydro medium you can hand water. Just get coco nutes for it, overall it's not very expensive & it's a completely renewable resource unlike peat. Well, peat is renewable, but on a several thousand year time scale.
 
FoxFarm Happy Tree Frog ( or Ocean Floor) and mix with 20-30% sand. Or you can mix 70% Sunland Organic Potting Soil with 20% Sunland Organic Compost and 10% sand.
 
millworkman said:
Hey Tx. How much nutes do you go through on a full size coco grow?
Click to expand...

It depends on your definition of full size lol. AJ would probably be able to answer that a bit better than I can since his feeding system is very similar to the way I treat coco except on a larger scale. I feed every watering.

I can tell you that with the HESI nutes I use, it is 3ml/L that I feed when they're full size so 1 liter bottle of nutes = 333.33 liters of nutrient solution. That's 88 gallons. Comes out to about 14c per gallon of mixed nutes if you buy the nutes by the liter.
 
I use promix and add some perlite my self and last year I bought a few bags of manure that I mixed in when I planted in pots and in the ground. I had great luck with that and will do it again this year
 
No pro mix available in the area...I will definitely try adding perlite and some manure in one of the batches to see how that does...

Gardening is simply trial and error...
 
All this talk about Pro-Mix BX detoured my car on the way home today. Bought three 3.8 cu. ft bales for 31.95 each, one hundred bucks after tax. This is the first change I've spent on my garden this year and money well spent. I've just obtained another fifty or so 5 gallon pots from behind nursery that went out of business.
 
Pepper Ridge Farm said:
All this talk about Pro-Mix BX detoured my car on the way home today. Bought three 3.8 cu. ft bales for 31.95 each, one hundred bucks after tax. This is the first change I've spent on my garden this year and money well spent. I've just obtained another fifty or so 5 gallon pots from behind nursery that went out of business.
Click to expand...

Wow Cappy! You're going to need a wide angle lens to take crop pictures this year. :)
 
Cappy...I have never seen the "bales"...are they compressed?...

straight out, how many 5 gallon containers will a bale fill?
 
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