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overwintering Winter-Summer in OZ "Comparison" / Aussie Blabberers

Who will win?

  • A muppet

    Votes: 20 34.5%

  • A muppet

    Votes: 15 25.9%

  • A muppet

    Votes: 23 39.7%
  • Total voters
    58
Quite a discussion going on here, boys! Very interesting observations.

Recently I decided to play around with vermiculite... and I don't like it at all! I have found it can break up (and consequently become ineffective) faaaar too easily... at least with these rough hands.
 
Yeah I have tried it too. I didn't switch to coir without trying vermiculite. I found it way too soft (and too expensive).
I think my first seedlings last year were just coles potting mix and vermiculite, and most plants died because of the constant spring rain I had. They were outside under a lazerlight poly sheeting roofed pergola, but the gutters suck in this house and overflowed right on the chillies, plus the laserlight poly roof sheeting is full of holes (due to the hailstorm in 2009 here, no one was living here at the time, the house is ready for bulldozing so of course it's not going to be fixed ever), so no where out the backyard to keep plants out of the rain.
Anyway, I wasn't too impressed with vermiculite, but I didn't use much due to the cost of it, I suspect you need to use a fair amount of it. Not economical, so looking at other options. That's what led me to perlite and coir, but it didn't work out in my buckets for mature plants very well. But it was at that time (sept 2011) I had a seedling out in the rain with 50% coir that was doing well, and grew much larger than the rest (the rest were yellowing/dying severely and stunted).
And as you know this year I am just starting them in autumn instead, so they get a head start in root development and can handle the wet conditions better.
But I'm still looking at the perfect draining budget mix and containers for potted plants (though hopefully I can just put everything in the ground and not worry about all this in the future).

BTW first billy Biker popped after only 4 days, thanks!
 
Perfect draining budget mix? How about just a perfect draining mix, budget or not! ;) I'm convinced no such thing exists in Australia... at least nothing commercial. I find the even bigger problem though is the quality of commercial mixes here. Shit quality materials, under-composted or not composted at all, and all that kind of garbage. Good luck paying big bucks for anything half decent let alone finding something budget.

Pablo_h said:
BTW first billy Biker popped after only 4 days, thanks!
Click to expand...

Sweeet. :cool:
 
Yeah, I know what you mean, there's nothing off the shelf that is perfect for chillies.
The debco organic mix is decent, lots of bark and compost, just needs something more to get more air to the roots and better drainage. It might work with a smartpot/airpot/ or greeny tote bag though with just a fair bit of perlite, I will find out as i have some of those bags, and some overwintered plants I want to pot up. I will look at the overwinters in buckets and check for one that has good roots, but seem to need potting up from it's 2.5G bucket.

Also doing another thang with coir germination, I use 50mm ^2 germination pots, as i like to move each one individually from the heated dome/peltier heater as they pop to give them light, not use trays or anything since I don't grow enough to need them and I haven't got a setup to give heat AND light to a tray.
What I'm trying after having problems with seedlings in coir recently, is filling the bottom 3/4 of my 50mm germination pots with normal SRM or potting mix for the roots, and just the top 1/4 or 15mm with coco coir for the seed to be placed in.
Might give the good germination of coco coir that I find, plus not having to worry about repotting like I do now after seeds sprout and I want to get them out of coco coir asap. I'm going to give this a try with the next few seeds I have done, as I'm running out of pots and can't repot anymore
 
I would love to get my hands on the Debco Organic Mix to give it a burl. Should've picked some up at the begining of the year when I saw it at stupid Bunnings. I hate that place so bad. ATM it's all Osmacote bullshit and would you believe I even saw Miracle Grow potting mix there the other day?

I wouldn't mind having to add some aeration to the Debco stuff if it turned out to be of good quality. Heck, I wouldn't mind paying for the stuff either if that was the case. From what I can remember, it's pretty pricey stuff, isn't it?
 
debco is usually around $12-13. I think most of their mixes are 25L bags (like pot mate, seed raising mix), the organic mix works out cheaper as it's a 30L bag for about the same price.
Have to hunt for Debco though. I hate bunnings too, but most garden centres are useless, most other hardware shops gone, so no choice but bunnings for me. Even then not all bunnings carry the same stock.
I think the nearest masters is like 40km away, they are all on the fringes of the opposite side of town since Bunnings already bought up all the good real estate in Perth.

I used to have a good hardware/garden/outdoor supplier in my own suburb, same pricing, not much traffic/idiots to deal with. Those days have gone as that shop closed.
And I tried out all the nearby garden centres and didn't get any better service/help/range than bunnings. Well some I did, but I guess you just have to find a good bunnings, as they are not all equal, some suck, some OK, some just have exactly what you need :(
 
Yeah, I guess that works out around the standard price for "premium" potting mixes.

Another Debco product I would like to try is the Green Wizard Regular Mix and build on it. Not even gonna bother trying to track it down at this point though.

Speaking of Debco too, managed to track down a bag of the organic compost a little while ago. Going against the good rep of their products, I'm not overly impressed with it. Loaded with bark chips (filler?) and full of pips. The bark, yeah, OK, it is intended for use in garden beds, but the pips? No excuse for that.

Bunnings here is going for that same-product-range-across-all-stores thing. I've been to four stores in the past month and all four carried an identical product range, no exceptions (well, at least in the garden section--I don't know about the rest of the store). I used to complain about the inconsistency... now I long for it's return. At least you could eventually find what you were looking for. Of course, it wouldn't be so bad if the current product range wasn't complete and utter shit.
 
Pablo I got a 100 litre bag of perlite pretty cheap last year from Agrishop in forrestdale. It was a long way to go for me but used tons of it and still got half a bag left. Can't remember how much it was but you could give them a call and get a price. Not sure if they have vermiculite.

Hydroponics xpress in canning vale has 100 litre bags of perlite for $100, but at 25% off for july according to their site. So thats until tomorrow :P Hydro stores jack up their prices to take advantage of drug growers. I'm guessing the rural supplies store would be cheaper.
 
Thanks mega, you got addresses? Some of these rural places don't really have a website.

Got my overwintered plant that is struggling a lot into a coles bag with extra perlite right now. It doesn't look sick, but I know it is. If that pulls through then my plan is greeny tote bags and extra extra perlite this season.
 
Agrishop
420 Nicholson Road Forrestdale WA 6112
(08) 9397 2800
They have a website but its not too helpful.

Hydroponics xpress
295 Warton Road Perth WA 6155
1800 640 222
http://www.hydroponicxpress.com.au/

If you are close by its worth a look in there just for seeing all the hydro systems they have set up out the back. I thought some of their products are a bit pricey and most could be easily substituted for a cheaper version available elsewhere.

edit : Just noticed their 100 litre bags of perlite are normally $50 not $100 like I said in my last post :P
 
Wouldn't have the foggiest, Meez.... and what's your definition of bulk?

What I do know though is it is great stuff! Much better than that fragile as hell vermiculite crap. Needs to harden the F up..... ;)
 
Had a second BB jal pop up yesterday Gasi. I get the feeling the 3rd probably won't, but 2/3 is still awesome.
Got some trini/amarillo seeds under as well, but they may take a while, I think one has started at least though (only planted 2).

All of them in coir.

I mentioned before coir is good for germ, but kind of sucks growing in with during winter and no heats/lights. It would be fine on a heat mat/heated dome though, but I'm not using them right now, just the peltier fridge.

I also mentioned I would try 2/3 SRM/potting mix and the top part only coir...Don't do that. I tried it, 5 seeds rotted and in one I even saw a maggot. Came out of nowhere and never seen one since the last years disastrous start. Same mix I use for all repotting, never a problem, but nice moist environments bring out too many things that are in SRM/potting mix just waiting to be fed and warmed up to hatch I think.
So back to only coir and perlite for germination again.
 
Awesome to hear about the BBs, mate! :cool: Hope you get something cool from the Am x TS Ys. Mine ended up popped pretty quickly... but then they were fresh as fresh can be.

I got one BB up out of the remainder of the seeds I put down. Not bad considering germ is up the shit ATM. Out of the last lot of seeds I put down (14 varieties), two weeks ago now I think, only 3 have so far popped (including the BB). Don't know what the hell is going on but I'm over it.

Bad germ rates are actually the least of problems right now though. All my starts are doing terrible. Everything is yellowing and just looks like crap. Messed up somewhere with the new mix I put together. Don't really feel like going into the details ATM though, as, like I said, I AM OVER IT.

Oh yeah, and to add insult to injury, broad mite have already found their way to the starts. OVER IT.

Sorry, I didn't mean to veer off into a hissy there.
 
gasificada said:
Wouldn't have the foggiest, Meez.... and what's your definition of bulk?

What I do know though is it is great stuff! Much better than that fragile as hell vermiculite crap. Needs to harden the F up..... ;)
Click to expand...

Lets say if i was going to grow tens of thousands of plants in pots,,, :whistle:

I have use of a giant growing machine, it was built to grow food for his cows (500 ton a day) it cost a shit load of money to build this thing & now its sitting idle since the drought has passed, you can grow anything inside it & i thought hmm chilli plants.

It has grow lights, humidity & temperature control & it can even dehydrate stuff if you want it to, its growing under lights under a massive scale & ive got use of it if i wanted.

Mezo.
 
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