durstons growbags / composts

[oldherbaceous]

Morning Richard, it's the early stage of a plants life that's the most important, regarding watering. A very fine rose on a watering-can can help. As the plants get bigger they will tolerate a bit of over-watering, but they still don't like having there roots in constantly sodden compost with no, or little air in it.

It just a matter of having a little play around, to get the balance right.
But please do a simple experiment, to see just how dry you can let things get without harming them.

[Ricard with an H]

It just a matter of having a little play around, to get the balance right.
But please do a simple experiment, to see just how dry you can let things get without harming them.

This is what i'm doing right now, nothing got watered PM yesterday other than some seedlings in quite small module-trays that really do dry-out quickly. Since your help with the damping-off I had I have several good sowings that look promising.

All/most the seedlings that were struggling through over-watering have responding to the compost being poked about and generally disturbed quite badly.

Something else I learned in the last few days but you'll have to pardon me digressing, yet-again, the value of fleece. I did four rows of red-onion sets, two rows were in a bed that didn't get the night-time fleece treatment and they haven't shown yet but the bed that had the fleece treatment have shown with up to a couple inches of growth.

Something else to share with you OH, whenever I went to our local garden centre I always though his planting needed a bit of watering help and felt sorry for him and his wife's work-load. Right now at a time it's all getting clearer i'm goint to pay him another visit to see what his secret mixture is. I do know he uses, "A professional mixture" that isn't for sale so it appears the Black-arts are everywhere.

Something else to share, last week I was considering the use of some rotted oak and other chippings from my wood-pile chain sawing area. I did a test sowing of rocket in this rotted woody material that does have a little loam mixed in from scratching it up. The rocket has shown it's head. presumably the seedling will keel-over as soon as they need nitrogen. I'll keep you in touch on this interesting (For me) matter. How about some liquid fertiliser at half-strength ?

[oldherbaceous]

Afternoon Richard, it is nice to share ideas and thoughts, i know they don't all work for everyone, but it is nice to try a couple of different ideas each year.

It will be interesting to see what grows in your wood-chippings. I think low nitrogen levels will be a problem, but feeding will help with that, but another problem that i think you will have is, it will be very acidic, so have a very low P.H, what i don't think the plants will like at all. Maybe you could start a Bueberry farm.

[Ricard with an H]

it will be very acidic, so have a very low P.H, what i don't think the plants will like at all. Maybe you could start a Bueberry farm.

I hadn't thought about PH levels and often wondered about PH in the peat composts once the initial treatment has worn off.

If the test planting doesn't work out it'll be something I learnt about the process of rotting. Most of the chippings are oak which contains tannic acid which would explain the black-ness when it's rotting. Oak also contains (Name escapes me) bugs that should always be treated with preservative to help stop the black-spoiling you get if you get a little moisture under the varnish as is the case with the weather strip on our main external oak door. I'm just hoping that these chippings are well rotted enough because I have a lot, I may add them to my comfrey plot mixed-up with either rotted cow-poo or rotted domestic kitchen compost.

The Durstons compost still looks sodden at the end of another day and we have a stiff breeze with 14 degrees so there is a lot of moisture retention going on in that stuff. I bought grow-bags from Durstons for my tomatoes but i'm not using the bags. I'll use large clay pots and whilst i'm aware of the water and nutrient needs of a kicking tomato plant my history of over-watering has to be dealt with.

Thank you for being so tolerant of my novice-ness.

[farmer jon]

my own trial of durstons multipurpose found nothing to inspire me to buy it again. it looks nice in the bag having been finely milled but i'm afraid that this is the only positive. after filling a half tray & watering , absolutely no water drained through to come out of the drainage holes of the tray. 1 day later it still looked a sodden,muddy mess & when squeezed in the hand , was soaking wet, in fact it took maybe 4 days to be anything near nicely damp. any seeds or seedlings would have rotted away in this time. maybe with large amounts of sharp sand to open it up then it may be usable ? as for nutrient level, well i gave up long before then , as will most seedlings.

[Geoff]

I've used very little bought compost this year. Mixed my own from various permutations of soil (mainly mole hills), leafmould, well rotten horse manure (shavings bedding), compost and sharp sand with added base fertiliser or Fish/Blood/Bone. The peat free composts I bought were used for Brassicas (I have club root so I keep the plants out of contact with my soil for as long as possible) and I added sharp sand, lime and superphosphate at sowing stage with FBB at the potting on stage. I think texture is everything in a compost and I like it quite open so would add sand to most bought in mixes. I also assume there is little food in cheap composts so always add fertiliser.

[Ricard with an H]

Ahhh, you've confirmed my fears and the reason I took-up the advise to use grit-sand though the grit-sand I sourced isn't as gritty as i'm used to it does open the compost. Maybe my problem has been to-much sand in a mixture that is possibly already nutrient-deficient and I didn't add more nutrient.

I potted-on four pepper plants into neat Durstons, after four days the top has just started to dry out but the pots are heavy.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Do you think you are firming it down too much? I fill round the plants quite gently and just tap the pot down on the bench to settle the compost. The one I'm using has added John Innes, so is a more solid consistency than the nice fluffy peaty ones. I think most people would prefer to use the peat mixtures but we are trying to do our bit to save the peat bogs by using reduced peat. I find a lot of the seed composts at the moment dry out too quickly that's why I'm trying the Durstans.