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Getting the most from available space

cheezydemon

cheezydemon

I am considering starting indoors and growing plants in tall thin containers. Maybe like medium coke cups from Mcdonalds. That way I could crowd plants closer together to take advantage of my space.

Many times when you see peoples plants just before they move outside, they are in fairly large pots by that time, and the plants are nowhere near to touching each other.

Not talking about a smaller pot, just a thinner deeper one.
 
Solo cups are almost perfect for pepper seedlings to start their young life inside the house on a windowsill. I buy a pack of 50 solo cups drill a nice size hole in half of them only. I plant my pepper seedling there after germination in cell trays. I water my plants until they drip through then place that cup inside another undrilled cup and line them up in the window with the most sun.
 
Right on! I am growing under lights, but much like your sil space, there is only so much space! I was thinking even larger than the solo cups. Something tall that would allow a long main root to grow but allow the plants to be packed in tightly to each other.

After all, I can raise my lights easilly, so a 2 ft tall x 3 inch pot of some sort would allow a lot of room vertically while limiting horizontal space needs.
 
For just a few plants
I start my seeds in 9 oz plastic cups with 3 1/4" holes drilled in the bottom. These cups take up about 3" X 3". It takes about 30 days for the seeds to germinate and fill the cup with roots, then to 6 inch pots, and then to 5 gallon pots.

For major spring garden preparation
I will be using the 5 or 6 seed starting trays (6 X 12) in about 2 weeks and will transplant the 2 best of each variety into the 9 oz cups, then follow the above routine.

Pam has shown me the light of bottom watering. I do not mist nor water from the top any more.

All the germination I do is under controlled conditions.....86F constant, ~55% humidity. Once the seedlings are up, I keep them at 86F in the day and 72F at night.

So far, I have been running 2 4100K lights 24/7 on both seeds and seedlings and am using 100 watt incandescent bulbs for heat.

Just the way I have learned to do it and I know not everyone will agree, it just works for me.

Postings crossed in space....

Think about this Cheezy....when you pull a plant up from the garden, are the roots 2 feet deep?.....in my experience, the root ball is between 6 and 10 inches in diameter for first year plants. I understand you are trying to conserve space and I will be interested in seeing what others say about the tall skinny pots...
 
No AJ, that sounds pretty textbook! I too bottom water. It's just too easy. I need to get a lot of plants going and space is ata premium for me. What do you think of my tall thin pots? Ideally 2ft x 4 inches or so for the final pots. I bet it would work.
 
I'm using 15 oz solo cup and have never bought a vegetable plant at the nursery in anything larger. I hope to keep my plants in these cups till I get them outside in 6-8 weeks. A 2 ft tall x 4 inch pot is like growing in a wine bottle.
 
Definitely not trying to be negative here...but if I had to bet, I would bet the roots get congested in the top half of the container and essentially become rootbound....just a guess on my part....

again, not trying to be negative...just thinking
 
No AJ I appreciate it!

Well I guess I will find out. Maybe I should grow in clear cylinders so that I can see root development!
 
I like the clear cups so you know when to transplant but I have read some negativism somewhere that the roots don't like the light...
 
I have also heard that negativism about roots and lights.
I think this will be an interesting experiment cuz a medium cup from mcdonalds is still only like, what, 8 inches? 10 maybe? (i don't really eat at mcdonalds...) if i was doing this i'd start at least half way down the cup (at least!) then when the second true leaves appear fill up to the seed leaves, then as the plant gets a few more sets of leaves start picking off the lowest level of leaves and filling some more then just continue in this fashion. Hopefully you'll be left with a small amount of vegetation but a disproportionatly large amount of root mass so when you transplant outside (hopefully) the roots are so efficient the plants grow much quicker and make up the difference in vegetative size quickly. I don't know if this will actually work tho (hence the experimental nature...) you might want some control plants.
 
I think - given the great success I have had so far [sarcasism smiley] I'll pick my garden center's head grower's brain. He told me something about starting seeds in basically egg cartons and 65 degree temps, then transplanting them to larger containers as needed. I know I got some Habs, Jalapeonos and Hungarians from him last year (middle of May) to transplant and they in nothing larger than 5 inch containers. So at the most, the roots were not over five inches deep.

Mike
 
well normally you don't start off with large roots (and you end off with more vegetative growth than roots too), i mean the biggest container my tomatoes see before transplant is cell packs of four. but after transplant the plant has to expend some energey growing the roots to find the nutrients to grow the vegetation while at the same time growing the vegetation. I'm hypothesizing that after transplant with the larger roots already established the plant can use all its energy on the vegetation so you'd be giving the plant the same head start but using less space, and inside it wouldn't miss the lower leaves because they're less efficient anyways. like i said tho, i have absolutely nothing to back this up.
 
AlabamaJack said:
I like the clear cups so you know when to transplant but I have read some negativism somewhere that the roots don't like the light...
Click to expand...

I shall insist that my peppers stop thriving at once.
 
AlabamaJack said:
I like the clear cups so you know when to transplant but I have read some negativism somewhere that the roots don't like the light...
Click to expand...

In theory the roots should be in darkness, but I've never really seen any problems with the clear cups. I do however prefer square pots for maximum efficiency.
 
Square pots give you the most soil, but do they fit the most plants?

I had another thought. Grow them in the tall thin cup, whatever, and when the roots are reasonably developed, remove the bottoms of the cups and move them to common tubs of dirt.

Like a large bin with holes in the bottom filled 1/2 way up with dirt. Set the now bottomless cups next to each other, really packed in, and let their roots delve down into the dirt.

One reason this appeals to me, is that the tall thin pots would be especially prone to falling over. So get them packed into a common bin.
The slight root tangling in the common tub shouldn't be a problem really.
 
cheezydemon said:
Square pots give you the most soil, but do they fit the most plants?
Click to expand...

You can get the same # with square pots and they fit well without being tippy. Its hip to be square eh.
 
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