media Can't Find Local Peat - How Good is Coir?

SanSoo

SanSoo

The only Peat Moss I have found so far locally is full of Miracle Grow. For growing plants to maturity, is it feasible/advisable to grow in Coir as long as I amend with Pear-Lite and maybe Vermiculite & Calcium?

I seem to remember something about a high salt content as well. Can that be rinsed out successfully?

Anything else I should consider?

Thanks.
 
All the big home stores usually have peat available, Lowes, Home Depot, Menards and Ace Hardware sometimes carries it.

You can use coco coir as a growing medium sure. You'll have to amend it just like you would peat. As far as the salt content most coco coir has been rinsed by the producers.
 
Are you willing to mix up a water soluble (no urea) fertilizer every time you water? That's what you need to do with plain coir, it will not feed your plants anything. If you can provide that care it's a great medium. Otherwise I'd suggest:

Use the Miracle Grow stuff
Keep looking for your preferred peat
Go with a soil (Kelloggs, SuperSoil, Sunland, etc...)
Add about 1/3 compost or EWC to the coir. That would provide some food for the plants. There must be a recipe for coir/compost/perlite somewhere.
 
Been to Home Depot and Ace, but not Lowes yet. I plan to mix a bit of composted potting soil & fresh worm castings in addition to perl-lite, and amend with regular watered & sprayed fish emulsion based nutes. I understand the need to add nutrients to a soil-less mix. Using store-bought potting soil has been too dense, and I haven't been able to locate a "fluffier" mix that didn't contain chemical "enhancements." I'm trying to keep everything organic.
 
If Lowes dosen't have it, then a nursery/farm supply will have straight peat. HD and Ace seem to be carrying less and less for serious gardening as time goes on.
 
Coco/perlite fan here. In fact, just this morning I potted up 5 seedlings and repotted an habañero in it.

I always rinse it well before use. Some claim it's not necessary but I'm sure it doesn't hurt anything and it's no big deal to do it. I mix up fresh nutes almost every time, too, but skipping a feeding occasionally is no big deal. I'm sure you could amend it with stuff such as EWC for fertilizing if you prefer. Supplementing with cal/mag is a good idea depending on your water.

In my experience, your plants will react differently to coco depending on how you treat them. Care for them like soil, feeding/watering once or twice a week, and you'll see similar growth to other soil grows. Treat them more like a hydro system, feed/water daily or every other day once they're established, and you'll see faster hydro-type growth.

IMG_2299.jpg
 
Coir is supposed to be great for germination; I'll be using it this morning for the first time. I've been having major germination problems here.
One thing I've read consistently is DON"T use peat products for initial germination. It's not available here so it's a moot point.
I'm not 100% sure about the peat thing but you might want to research it a bit. Cheers.
 
you can try 1/3 coir 1/3 vermiculite 1/3 compost it is in my raised beds both 4 x 10 works great for me, i also add a lot of coir to my compost pile have 6 coconut trees growing.
 
Don't listen to redwood city/ecoseeds, peat is a great medium base as long as its ammended for pH, and for better moisture holding.
Cococ coir is a great medium too, however I avoid it since it generally requires coir specific nutrients where as I prefer using my own compost and home-grown nutrients
 
POTAWIE said:
Don't listen to redwood city/ecoseeds, peat is a great medium base as long as its ammended for pH, and for better moisture holding.
Cococ coir is a great medium too, however I generally avoid it since it generally requires coir specific nutrients where as I prefer using my own compost and home-grown nutrients
Click to expand...

Interesting, redwood is one of the sites I got that info from. Cheers.
 
Ya, a lot of people get ridiculous info from them. They also say the tepin is the hottest pepper in the world according to their Dreman heat scale:) LOL.
What a load of B.S.
 
POTAWIE said:
Ya, a lot of people get ridiculous info from them. They also say the tepin is the hottest pepper in the world according to their Dreman heat scale:) LOL.
What a load of B.S.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I caught that one also; maybe in their world?

I've moved on since then; this site is the best one I've found for overall information. Here in LOS (land of smiles) we've had a rough time getting going. One plant is a scary thing to rely on, but things are really looking up now. Cheers.
 
Duffman said:
Coco/perlite fan here. In fact, just this morning I potted up 5 seedlings and repotted an habañero in it.

I always rinse it well before use. Some claim it's not necessary but I'm sure it doesn't hurt anything and it's no big deal to do it. I mix up fresh nutes almost every time, too, but skipping a feeding occasionally is no big deal. I'm sure you could amend it with stuff such as EWC for fertilizing if you prefer. Supplementing with cal/mag is a good idea depending on your water.

In my experience, your plants will react differently to coco depending on how you treat them. Care for them like soil, feeding/watering once or twice a week, and you'll see similar growth to other soil grows. Treat them more like a hydro system, feed/water daily or every other day once they're established, and you'll see faster hydro-type growth.

IMG_2299.jpg
Click to expand...

I think you need more perlite in there...

:)
 
NoVa Hothead said:
I think you need more perlite in there...

:)
Click to expand...

I'll run anywhere up to a 50/50 mix of coco to perlite depending on my needs. It's nice and light with good water retention and excellent aeration. Roots love it, especially young ones that are just getting established. Plus, it always looks extra white right after repotting because a lot of the loose perlite floats up to the top at the first watering.

Works great for me!
 
Thanks guys. I checked Lowes website and they do carry 2.2 cu bags of peat. It's a bit of a drive, which is why I didn't know they carried it.

Did some more checking and seems coir is a bit more nute intensive, but I may try a few pots to experiment.
 
Here's a couple of shots of my mini-greenhouse with coir plugs. It's the morning of day 3, so no action yet.

MiniGreenHouse-SV.jpg


CoirPlugs-TV.jpg


As soon as I see a sprout I'll give it a weak solution of some orchid fertilizer.
 
Well, today is the morning of day 5 and I've got 4 sprouts. Given I've been at this for almost 5 months and this is my first success; I'm sold on coir plugs. A friend and I have been through more than 100 seeds and this is the 2nd time we've gotten germination. He got the first one and couldn't duplicate it. Now 4, yee ha!
 
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