I've looked at older posts and can't find a definitive answer. I've for my new batch of final soil cooking. Is there a specific mix for seed sprouting and seedlings? 1:1:1 compost, perlite, Peat with some lime? How much lime?? Sorry if this is in an easy to find place that I've missed!
Depending on the quality of the soil I often mix my germing soils 50/50 with clean river sand or perlite as an extra guarantee I often put both mixes thru a kitchen sieve to get those tiny roots to cling tot he soil good luck
The soil mix you made in your other thread may or may not work for seedlings. Compost sources vary greatly and it seems like you added quite a lot of dry amendments. You have done a poor job explaining what you actually mixed up. 2 parts peat moss 2 parts perlite 1 part ewc (preferably) or compost 1tbs of oyster shell per gallon I posted this in your last thread. Good luck. RD
Thanks for your reply. You did turn me on to the seedling mix, but didn't mention how much lime. Sorry if I misunderstood. As for what I mixed, here's what it was: 3 gallons Peat 3 gallons perlite 1.5 gallons compost 1.5 gallons ewc Crab, neem, kelp. 1cup each Rock dust, 5 cups Oyster, 0.25 cups Gypsum, 0.5 cups Mbp, 1.25 cups Finally, I added about 3/4 gallon of rice hulls since I'll be using a swick.
Alright. Thanks for the breakdown. Many of us have run into trouble using that much rock dust. It can make the soil mix really heavy and wet. 1-2 cups per c.f. seems to be plenty. I'd suggest popping a seed or two in the mix you just made and popping a seed or two in some sort of seedling mix. Then wait and see how things turn out. Use seeds that don't mean much to you or buy a pack of tomato seeds and test it out. The technical term is called a bioassay, and can be a very important tool. HTH RD
I was going to grab a bag of espoma seed starter today, looks like it could be a nice way to start some seeds and it's got mycorrhizae added. I've got some tomato seeds I could test. Any reason to use tomato specifically??
May I add that Wollastonite calcium silicate can be used to flush excess magnesium which is what compacts the soil. Just top dress it and carry on.
Been using Jiffy starter soil..so far 100% sprouting but one fell over and died (genetics I guess)..Planted 18 seeds so far with the ole soak then paper towel then into Solo cup and Jiffy starter soil.. Once tried straight FFOF and the seedling died pretty fast!
