imafan26
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Growing organic in containers

What organic mix can you use in containers?
What would be the fertilizer routine?

It has been raining for days and I really need to get my plants started so they will be ready for the first sale in February. I can't make cuttings because there is too much wind and my cuttings and seeds are started outside and not indoors or even in a sheltered area. Cuttings are kept under the bench and watered once a day. Seeds are in compots on the bench in the sun. I may use another tray to cover seeds just to keep the birds from eating the seeds.

People now are more interested in organic, although from talking with them. I know they have no real clue what organic is. They seem to think like people who buy conventional veggies do. 1. Plants will take care of themselves. 1a they forget to water 1b. Do not have or choose a good location for the pots 1c. they think that seedlings can grow to maturity in a 4 inch pot. 1d. They think if they get a few fruit and the annual lettuce or cucumber dies, then it wasn't worth it. They think a plant should produce forever with no care. 2. People think plants in pots only need water. Fertilizer and light are not even considerations. People have little understanding that organic is actually more "work" than conventional growing. This is in terms of things like weeding, pest control, and frequency of fertilizing. Not to mention that organic fertilizer requires more pounds or tons per acre than synthetics for the same NPK.
It seems that to ordinary people who are eating organic but not gardeners, organic means no pesticides but they don't understand that organics is about supporting a healthy soil and what goes into it. 3. People don't understand that vegetable and herb starters are meant to be planted out into the garden or appropriately sized containers.

I would like to offer more organically grown plants in containers. I do not intend to call anything "organic" and I could not qualify. I can separate my plants by using different benches and I don't use pesticides on any of my seedlings conventional or not except for the NOP approved snail bait. I cannot meet the separation standards and 3 year requirements anyway. It would not be worth it for me to do so. For myself, I prefer to use conventional fertilizer for my own garden since, I don't want to lug around a lot of pounds of fertilizer or have to fertilize often for a smaller yield. I do add compost to my garden for almost every crop cycle.

I generally do not use many pesticides and I do use slug bait which is NOP approved. I have used Sunshine #4 which is a commercial potting mix that is OMRI approved. It contains primarily peat and perlite. Perlite is allowed by NOP standards even though it is manufactured and not organic. Peat moss in Sunshine #4 does not contain wetting agents. It makes it harder to wet and it dries out faster than regular peat poss with wetting agents. All peat moss that is available to me has some lime in it that is added by the manufacturer to raise the pH to about 6.0.

Whenever, I have tried to grow organically in pots with organic fertilizer and organic mixes, the results have been mediocre at best. The organic mix usually contain more forest products or more compost than peat moss and either are very hard to keep from drying out or stay way too wet.

Plants grown in organic potting mixes in pots have always been small and less robust than the usual peat lite and synthetic fertilizer. Even when I added synthetic fertilizer to try to boost the growth rate on the plants in the organic mix. The results were often too little too late. The plants had been set back to early and really had a hard time recovering from it.

I know that one of my mistakes is that the organic mixes don't have enough fertilizer and 4 inch pots do not have sustainable populations of soil organisms. I don't feed the organic mixes with organic fertilizer every week. I do not feed the conventional grown pots either, but they do get a starter fertilizer in the mix. I would only supplement potted plants that would have to be in the pots for more than a couple of months. The organic mix does claim to have organic fertilizer in it.

I will need to supplement the seedlings in organic mixes if I am to get better results.

If you are growing seedlings in pots organically, what would your fertilizing routine be and what are you using?

My goal is to offer more organically grown seedlings, but not to be certified organic.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/ ... ov2016.pdf

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applestar
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I could probably offer more suggestions if I sit down and think about it a bit, but I don’t have a routine as such so it would be hard to define a program...

But FYI —

- I’m starting to think that fermented green juice really works — original recipe uses fast-growing young mugwort/yomogi tips (horsetail/sugina is optional addition for silicone/promotes stronger plant cell walls and for preventing fungal disease) + 1/3 by weight of raw sugar — layer in container/bucket with lid, weigh down like pickles, protect from bugs, pour off juice after 4 days in warm weather and keep in loosely capped soda bottle. Use at 1:400 ratio mixed in chlorine-free water. Water/sprinkle/mist with it once or twice a week.

- Mix the fermented green juice with bran (rice, oat, wheat) and raw sugar to sprinkle in/activate kitchen scrap bokashi (fill, exclude air, keep in air-tight bucket {add spigot for convenience}) and save/use leacheate.

- (I haven’t tried this yet but am planning on it first thing this spring) — mix fermented green juice with bran, raw sugar, and various additional ingredients to make own bokashi fertilizer. Ingredient suggestions are — fish meal, fish bonemeal, crab/shrimp/crustacean meal, seed meals like rapeseed, soybean, cotton seeds, etc. (maybe neem cake meal?) Tightly seal (no air) and ferment/culture 1 week in summer, 2 weeks in winter, then spread out in insect screen covered tub and air dry.

- vermicomposter leacheate and vermicomposter tea (I suppose earthworm in every container is out of the question if you are selling them since some people would get too creeped out)

- used tea leaves and coffee grounds, rice/grains washing liquid, no-salt parboil greens, pasta boiling water, almost all leftover beverages and container rinse water.... fermented fruit soaked water for potassium ... eggshells, etc., fermented fruits in vinegar for acid-loving plants....

- maybe use a hibachi or something and make small amount of ash from suspect plant material (I’m going to continue my experiments with stacked brick rocket stove)


...yucca root and aloe juice extracts as wetting agent for the peat-moss? I’ve also tried jewelweed juice which sudses up when rubbed between hands. Not sure if these were effective since I lost track of that experiment — let me know if you decide to try this :wink:

imafan26
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I have made vermicast tea before and I have kitchen scraps in the freezer for trench composting. I don't know about fermenting, but I might be willing to experiment with blenderizing the scraps into a liquid form and making compost tea. I could make it easier on myself by using fish emulsion and/or making manure tea. I would have to use an aerator. I usually make non aerated tea. Blood meal has the highest organic nitrogen that is relatively fast release, but I don't like to use animal byproducts from the slaughterhouse. I don't even like to use manures very much. Fish emulsion, I am o.k. with except for the smell. Oats and bran are not cost effective in the quantities I can get. No farm stores near here. Rice water is easy, I can do that. I only cook rice once a week or less, so it may take a while to get enough washings. Rice water is usually saved for the orchids. I have a bokashi recipe and I did get it half started but never finished it. Actually, I dumped it because of the smell.

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digitS'
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I use a commercial organic potting soil for starting seeds, soilless mix or perlite for cuttings (the few that I do :wink:), and mix my own compost with bagged top soil and peat for perennials.

Fish emulsion is useful and flats of plant starts can be set is a basin for bottom feeding. Years ago, I made good use of an organic lawn fertilizer (no longer available) in the garden and in pots. It was 7% nitrogen and I really don't want to use anything organic that is less than 5%. I have little idea how soon some of these make that N available to the plants.

Scheduling? I try to pay attention and be responsive to the plant needs. It takes some experience. Really, as you are pointing out regarding some folks who try to care for plants. It's worse than parenting where a person can reflect on their own care as children. "Was I allowed to cross the street by myself when I was six? Jump off the garage roof? Skip meals?"

Fortunately, or otherwise, my growing season isn't very long. I have less time to make mistakes each year :wink: .

Steve
with some time to plan

imafan26
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That's right. I forgot about the Scott's organic lawn fertilizer. I just checked and it looks like it isn't carried nearby. Fish emulsion seems to be the best bet. 2 tablespoons per gallon every 2-3 weeks. It was recommended that the pots be watered well afterwards because of the salt build up. I usually only use fish emulsion for plants that I think have a nutrient deficiency, but I can't figure out which one. The neighbors complain about the smell when I use it on the whole yard and it attracts both flies and cats. The fly bait does smell worse though. It is a good thing that I usually don't have a lot of seedlings on a bench at one time. Max is about 4 trays per 8 ft. Vermicast tea can work if the vermicast is rich in nitrogen. Usually that means mixing chicken manure into the vermicompost tea. It does not smell as bad as fish emulsion, it just takes a little more planning to prepare it.

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applestar
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Hmmm. To me, Bokashi smells like kimchee or nukazuke (vegetable pickles lacto-fermented in rice bran and salt)

..... The fermented green juice, as well as fortified bokashi and vermicast leacheates (add raw sugar and keep in loosely capped bottles to culture for a week) — smell sort of cloying and sweet at first, then maybe alcohol-like or vinegar-like. I think maybe a bit like sake-kasu and sake-kasu pickles. (What I remember as smell of sake-kasu is used sake “koji/malt” sold in small flat blocks in Japanese grocery that my Mom used to make pickles and marinate meats with).

So for me, they all smell kind of yummy :> ... but my DD’s wrinkle up their noses, so I guess they would describe as “stinky" :lol:

imafan26
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It does have a strong odor. My Korean friends keep a separate frig just for kimchee because of that. I don't like the smell of kim chee, vinegar, or ammonia. Vermicast tea once it is diluted isn't too bad, it smells earthy. Vermicast that has a lot of nitrogen can have a stronger smell of ammonia. Fish emulsion, well it smells like rotten fish. Bokashi has that fermented rice/bran smell + moldy odor.

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digitS'
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When I lived in the country and set up my first garden there, I had experience with compost but I wanted to try compost tea.

It seems that I used a 55 gallon barrel. It may have been a smaller container, just that it assumed a very large presence, in a couple of weeks. Nope, I wasn't putting anything that smelled that bad on my food plants! Later, someone I know was fermenting a small container of stinging nettle tea. Smell just as bad ...

Probably, a much better-smelling brew could be made using something other than kitchen scraps, decaying plants and cow manure. It is even likely that it would have superior fertilizer qualities.

Some plants handle liquid fertilizer very well because they hold moisture on their leaves. In the soil, the fertilizer is being distributed further than where the plant can immediately benefit but that can be okay.

In my city-size lot, bottom watering plants in containers keeps something like fish emulsion in a small area. Extra water can go in the compost and the odor doesn't persist. In the distant garden and a semi-rural setting, I can be more liberal with the emulsion in a sprinkler can. Overhead irrigation two or three times a week, removes the smell in a few days.

Steve

imafan26
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Vermicast tea does not smell very bad as long as there was not excess nitrogen in the bin. Manure tea, does have a smell, but depending on the dilution and the age of the manure it can be tolerable. Usually, I do trench composting with kitchn scraps. There is no smell, but the ground will sink about 2 weeks later so I cannot plant on top of it right away. At the herb garden, I have to wait about a month before planting on top of a kitchen scrap trench because the mongoose will dig it up, not for the scraps which have become soup by then, but for the grubs that the scraps attract.

I have never made tea in large quantities. I usually only make a 5 gallon bucket, but I can use the sock twice. I make non aerated tea in 72 hours. Aerated tea takes 24 hours but must be used within 4 hours. This does not include the 24 hours the water needs to be aerated or stirred to off gas any chlorine. My water is not heavily chlorinated, so skipping this step does not change much. My water is relatively high in magnesium and calcium but that is to be expected since our water is from artesian wells and dikes in the mountains and the filters are volcanic rock and coral.

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I grow organically in containers too.

Over the years I have moved to clay pots and prefer glazed pots for water retention. I used to use plastic and wood but don't want to worry about what leaches out of those.

For dirt, I use the SFG method by Mel Bartholomew. 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 coarse vermiculite and 1/3 compost. He recommends at least 5 types to provide a myriad of nutrients. I usually have to go 3 or 4 places to find all the ingredients I want. I am picky and only buy Certified organic or OMRI listed stuff. I know it's probably not up to my standards but it's probably better than the bulk junk. I typically use cow manure, chicken manure and worm castings. For the other 2 at a min I have varied between bat guano, sea bird guano, mushroom compost, composted burr oak, composted food scraps (from Whole Foods) and my own garden compost. If I owned my own land I would compost grass clippings after living there a few years so I knew there wasn't too much garbage in it. I never fertilize and get decent yields. He does recomend that you add some more compost mix every spring so when I am making new dirt (I try to expand evey year) I take some of the compost mix and add it to all of my pots. I sift all my dirt though a screen every spring to aerate the soil and pull out roots and the rocks I put in the bottoms of the pots it is also an easy way to mic in the new compost. In the past that also helped me get rid of the acorns my local squirrels had planted for me and a lot of tree leaves. This last year I just covered everything with tarps to keep the leaves out more than anything.

imafan26
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I have tried using manure and compost in my containers directly. It has always been a failure. The compost is not a good replacement for peat moss as it holds too much water and packs down and compacts the air space. I haven't got the ratio right for using manure in the containers. The NPK is lower than other fertilizers but I think the ash and salts in the manures as well as the pH causes problems and plants will either fail to germinate or they will just not thrive and die stunted in a short time. I have only had some success with vermicompost being added to peat lite. But I am only adding a couple of handfuls of vermicast to a 5 gallon bucket of peat lite.

imafan26
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O.k. so for my first all organic container. I used a 48 qt rubbermaid tub. It is equivalent in volume to an 18 gallon pot or close. I used organic peat moss and perlite for the mix. This contains zero weeds, nutrients, or pests or diseases. I used my usual 50/50 ratio for the mix. Since organic fertilizers are largely not plant available until they are converted to an inorganic form by soil bacteria, I needed soil bacteria. I seeded the pot with about a cup of freshly harvested vermicast. I tried to take out all the worms, but a few may have ended up in the pot anyway. I did have some 8-8-8 organic orchid fertilizer. I put 3 cups of the fertilizer in the container and mixed it in. I planted provider beans. I chose beans because legumes have a low nitrogen requirement. I planted 29 seeds, 28 survived. After the seeds germinated and the true leaves came out, I have been giving the container weekly fish emulsion and this week I also added yogurt to the fish emulsion. The beans are flowering now and they are about 18 inches tall. I chose these beans because I had them and they are organic seeds, but I have not grown this variety before so I cannot compare them to contender which is my usual in ground bush bean.

The second 48 quart storage container was mixed the same way and I have cilantro in that one. The germination in the middle of the pot was not as even, but that was a problem of the way water pooled, so I resowed the pot. Cilantro takes longer to grow in the early stages, but it looks o.k. at this point in time.

I grew Soarer cucumbers in organic potting soil without starter fertilizer. Cucumbers
are moderate feeders. It did not take long for the cucumber seedlings to start to yellow. I had to increase the fish emulsion to twice a week, and that corrected the yellowing.

I used 18 gallon pots composed of 1/3 bagged compost (Kellogg's garden soil), 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 perlite mix. One of the pots has more peat moss since I ran out of the compost.
I ordered more organic fertilizer on line. I got one that has micorrhizzae in it. I don't know how well they survive in bag. The new fertilizer has a lower NPK so I mixed 1 cup of Biotone organic starter fertilizer with 2 cups of the 8-8-8 and I also ordered langebenite for added potassium. The magnesium comes with it. I don't need it. One of the problems of organic options is not always being able to get just want you want. The npk of langebeinite is 0-0-22, one third of the potassium that I use for conventional root crops. So, I had to add about 1/4 cup to make up the difference.
I also seeded these pots with about a cup of fresh vermicast.

I transplanted the cucumber seedlings. There are 4 in a pot and one pot had 5. One of the transplants may not make it, but the rest look o.k. I fertilized them with fish emulsion + yogurt for the lactobacilli. Soarer is a heavier feeder than beans, so I will have to watch the seedlings. I may have to enhance the fish emulsion to get enough nitrogen to support the growth.

The compost in the pots make the soil much wetter. This is not a new problem for me and it is why, I don't usually put compost in pots, but it is part of the experiment. I have to adjust watering and hope the rain cooperates.

Cost wise, this is less economical. Organic fertilizer and seeds cost twice as much as conventional. Prices have quadrupled in the last 3 months. The organic fertilizers have about 1/2 to 1/3 the NPK of conventional fertilizers and I have to use 1.5- 3 times more. Not to mention the additional cost of the fish emulsion ($23 a gallon), and the extra time to apply it. Then there is the added annoyance of the flies. The compost cost $5 more per 3 cu ft than the peat moss. I still have to wait a bit to see what the yields look like.

imafan26
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I am starting to harvest the Provider beans in the organic container. The container was planted on January 22,2022 It looks like the beans appeared about 10 days from flowering and it is taking another week for the bean pods to develop. I have to figure out how long I can keep them on the plant before I have to harvest them and how long they will store. I harvested the first few on 3/11 and another 4 today on 3/14. The cilantro can also be harvested. Right now, the older cilantro is bolting and I am trying to figure out what I can do with it. So far, I have added it to a soup and a salad. I could make salsa, but I don't have a lot of uses for it except on eggs. I am not eating chips, crackers, or bread so it limits where I can use it.

I reseeded the tower garden again and the new seeds are sprouting, but there a still pockets of nothing. I will try a different bean variety. Provider should do well, but maxibel may not like this climate. Maybe I should switch to tendergreen or green crop instead.

Some of the tomato seeds I planted in the organic pots (peatlite and no compost) are sprouting. I am going to start the fish emulsion feedings early this time.

The surviving Soarer in the organic pots are starting to flower, but they are less than a foot tall. While soarer does flower small, they usually are bigger than these are. The seeds of Soarer that were direct seeded in the pots are also coming up. Hopefully, they will do better if I can keep them from getting setbacks.

KleverKat
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Any updates on the provider beans? Did they grow well?

imafan26
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The provider beans grew well in the tote container. They grew better than the beans in the tower probably because they have better root space. The bush beans in the tower garden only grew less than a foot, but the provider in the totes were 18-24 inches tall and the beans were larger and yielded a higher wt in beans. I had more provider beans in the totes and I had more maxibel beans in the tower so the beans themselves don't compare. Provider is a clear winner for production and disease resistance. Beans are probably one of the easier things to grow in organic containers because they have low nutrient requirements.

Now that summer is over, I am growing bush beans again. Provider has sprouted in the 48 gallon tote. I have that inter planted with carrots. I have Maxibel and some contender in the tower garden. I have reseeded some of them since the birds ate some of the bean tips. I also planted Poamoho pole beans in another container which the birds ate the tips off. I ended up having to replant that container and put bird netting over it and also put a tree net over the provider bin. I have planted more Contender beans in the main garden, mainly because I have nematodes in the main garden so I need to plant a nematode resistant crops in the infested parts of the garden. Those are just starting to emerge. I will probably also have to build a frame and put up bird netting to protect them. In my tropical climate, I can only grow heat tolerant pole beans and long beans in summer. The birds did a lot of damage to those too. Bush beans do better in my cooler months when the temperature will be anywhere from 63-78 degrees. It is currently 74 degrees with an expected high around 80. It is actually warm for November. Bush beans struggle in summer when the temperatures are 84-88 degrees every day. This year I did not have any days near 90. The bush beans, lettuce, and broccoli all prefer temperatures under 75 at maturity.

The tomatoes, lettuce, and radish did fine in the organic mix, but the cucumbers did not and I had to order special fertilizers. Potassium, Biotone, kelp because it is not available here. There were potassium, zinc, and magnesium deficiencies in the cucumber that reduced yields and shortened the life of the vines, so I am not going to try to grow cucumbers organically in containers. I don't have access to a complete organic fertilizer and I can't figure out how to blend different organic fertilizers to correct potassium without messing up the ratios of the calcium and magnesium and creating the zinc and magnesium deficiencies later on. I have had to add potassium and lime to the organic mix to try to correct the imbalances. I also had to order kelp and potassium online since it is hard to get organic ones here. It is frankly too much work and I can grow the cucumbers conventionally, the same variety, in the same base potting soil with synthetic fertilizers that don't have these issues.

pepper bob
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For my hot peppers,I like to use Coco core and mix in cow manure and worm castings with a bark type soil. I add some slow release blood meal in the mix to make sure the bark doesn't deplete the nitro. IMO, its hard to beat cow manure, worm casting and black strap molasses to make a tea! I use a 5 gallon bucket and aerate the water for 12 to 16hrs then add the ingredients stir and continue aerating for several Hours . This is great for seedlings in small pots as u can just dip a couple at a time in the tea. A grass catching mower, veggie and fruit scrapes and a good supply of carbon material can save a small fortune in fertilizer!

BTW, I'm new to the forums, so hello to all.

imafan26
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The tower garden can be done organically because the 7 tier one has 5 cu ft of soil and the 5 tier has about 4 cu ft. It does have to be fertilized with fish emulsion every week. I got some kelp meal so I can alternate as the plants get older they need less nitrogen and more of the potassium. The peppers seem to grow better in the tower than in the pots or at least they grow taller. But that may partly be because they are on the lowest tier so they are reaching more for the light.

Plants that are not high feeders do o.k. with the organic fertilizers but the cucumbers definitely do better with synthetic. Tomatoes did o.k. as long as they get their weekly supplements. Leafy greens, beans, and kale did o.k .in the towers. Herbs are not fussy, so they also did well in the tower.

It is harder for me to get a lot of organic sources. I can get the Bonide garden and plant tone. I have to order potassium from amazon. I did find some blood meal on clearance for $2.50 a bag. I have 50 lbs of sustane. But I don't use bone meal and it has been hard to find. At the garden where we did aquaponics we mixed 2 parts sustane with 1 part bone meal for most of the plants. The best I can do is mix fertilizers but it is hard to know how much of each to mix. I also had to add lime to the pots for the calcium. Normally, I would not have to do this with a synthetic fertilizer.

Reusing the soil also has fertility issues. The plants are smaller although I use the same amount of fertilizer. I may have to send the used potting soil for testing to see if I get any clues about how to ferilize it.



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