alisios
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Started in Jiffy Pellets

Hello - I have tomatoes that have germinated in those Jiffy Peat Pellets. The plants have the secondary leaves now and I notice that there are roots coming through the netting on the pellet.

Should I try to remove the netting? This would damage some roots from the plant. Does it matter?

Thanks for your help!

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Ozark Lady
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Hi,
I used peat pellets last spring and I personally, did not care for them, I had that kind of issue also.

I would try removing some, just be gentle and try not to tear up the roots, as you remove the netting. I would also try leaving the netting on some, see if the roots can break it for themselves without injury.

I would also check over the others and move them to pots with potting soil in them.

Now this is personal preferences, I found that they dried out too quickly for me... but, I am terrible about not watering often enough... if you are terrible about overwatering, they may work well for you...

a0c8c
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They wont work for you if you water correctly. They don't dry out if watered normally and cause your roots to rot. They also impede the growth of roots, and can suffocate them. I'd get rid of as much of the jiffy pot as you can. You'll find alot of people here who've had major problems with jiffy pots, me included(I lost wo gardens full of flowers, and still too this day have all those darned pots).

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gixxerific
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a0c8c alisios is talking about the peat pellets not the pots. I say no to the pots, I have the peat pellets this year but am getting more scared to use them with every post like this.

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Ozark Lady
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I recommend that you wet the peat pellets, then when they swell up, remove the netting. Then just crumble them up and mix with garden soil. They do a good job of lightening the soil, and preventing compaction. Remember soil can compact even in a flower pot..
I find the peat pots don't work good this way. To get rid of them, I tried everything. They are now peacefully in a land fill somewhere.
I couldn't get the peat pots to break down... they stayed peat pot parts, no matter how much I tore them up, soaked them etc. It would have taken my blender to make them into anything buy peat pots.
This is my personal experience with both. I would not buy peat pellets, nor peat pots again!

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gixxerific
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Ozark Lady wrote:I recommend that you wet the peat pellets, then when they swell up, remove the netting. Then just crumble them up and mix with garden soil. They do a good job of lightening the soil, and preventing compaction. Remember soil can compact even in a flower pot..
I find the peat pots don't work good this way. To get rid of them, I tried everything. They are now peacefully in a land fill somewhere.
I couldn't get the peat pots to break down... they stayed peat pot parts, no matter how much I tore them up, soaked them etc. It would have taken my blender to make them into anything buy peat pots.
This is my personal experience with both. I would not buy peat pellets, nor peat pots again!
I wouldn't recommend using garden soil The compaction rate is too high as well as the chance of bringing in pest or disease. If you meant potting soil than sorry for the correction. 8)

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applestar
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Since the intent of the netting is to hold the pellet together (like Ozark Lady said, they crumble easily after the netting is taken off), best way to deal with those netting without damaging the little roots is to use small pointed scissors to cut slits in the netting. 6 of them up the sides around the pellet should do.

Then use the product as intended and pop the netted pellets in the next size pot (4") Once the little roots start growing out, it's time to up pot. Use a well draining soil mix (I make my own fortified with compost, alfalfa meal, rock phosphate, greensand and dolomitic lime). I usually barely cover the bottom of the larger pot (lined with paper towel to keep soil from falling out) with the soil mix, rest the root ball on the soil padding, then bury the seedling to the base of the first true leaves, trimming off the seed leaves. Depending on the weather conditions, you may need to up pot again to 6" pots later on. I don't think the little pellets are big enough to grow tomato transplants without up potting.

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Duh_Vinci
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You have many great advises here already!

I've used peat pellets many times, and generally, to avoid tearing up the roots - I tend to peel off the netting and plant them into a larger pots before little roots starting to poke through.

Apple - sounds like you have a very nice, "Everything plants need" mix, nice!

Regards,
D

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Ozark Lady
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I did mean bags of soil. I don't bring soil inside from the garden.
In fact, I have bags of soil in the garden at the potting table there.
Sorry, I should have been clearer.

And when I make compost tea, it is from bags sold at the store, labelled compost. I don't make homemade compost, nor use garden soil from the beds for seedlings.

alisios
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Thanks all for the responses...

Just a follow up....

I up-potted the plants today and successfully removed the netting. The roots that were coming through the netting just came back out the other way. I did lose a few roots, but the majority slipped back through when I pulled the netting.

I think next year, I'm going to forget the pellets altogether...I'll use up what I have left this year.

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gixxerific
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The second I saw this post I broke out some seeds and a single pellet just to see how they worked. They may not be so bad as long as you transplant as soon as possible.

Good luck to you

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Ozark Lady
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Did you notice? For me, they were too dry, and my plants suffered. For the next poster they held moisture and caused root rot.
So, alot of your success or failure will depend on the humidity where you are using them, as well as, what you are starting, and how you water them.

We all have many variables, and many terms are relative ones and mean one thing to one person and something else to another.

I started tobacco seedlings in them. I was cautioned not to overwater.
After I killed several bunches, I began to experiment. I discovered that tobacco, in fact loves water, it should be raised as a bog plant until it gets ready to harden for the garden, then you need to wean it off of the water. For someone else, the tobacco would get root rot from the amount of water that I ended up giving my survivors. I actually got so that I made sure there was water standing in the tray... at all times or they died!

So, many things are variable. That is why I state so many things as...
For me, or in my experience. And if 2010 is more like a normal season, it will vary greatly from my experiences in 2009. I think that is the challenge of gardening. Every year, every crop, every situation... though familiar is different, with differing results.

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applestar
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You got that right Ozark Lady.
It's almost impossible to describe all the little details that make up the choices, decisions, and procedures that go into individual gardening methods. I think that's why when I've described something as best I could, I want to stick to it and refer people back to my previous posts. Sometimes, I realize I forgot something or have, since then, changed something, learned something new. :wink:

Listen, learn, harvest the apples of knowledge and process them to your individual taste.

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I use the pellets, but I repot before the roots come out the netting

tedln
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gixxerific wrote:I wouldn't recommend using garden soil The compaction rate is too high as well as the chance of bringing in pest or disease. If you meant potting soil than sorry for the correction. 8)
Dono,

The discussion of whether to use natural soil in potting soil mix is probably as old as gardening itself. Remember the "hanging gardens of Babylon"? I've been gardening for a lot of years in the ground and in containers. I've actually been kicked off forums for saying "I use some natural soil in my container mixes". While I don't use it in the germination mix, I do use it when I repot. It has always worked for me. I believe the natural bacteria and mineral mix present in natural soil is as important to plants in pots as it is to plants in the ground. I normally use a 50/50 mix of natural soil and sterile potting soil, but sometimes reduce the mix to 25% natural and 75% sterile. It depends on the plant I am growing and the quality of the soils I am mixing. I don't want a lot of organics in the natural soil I use.

While it works for me, I don't preach the method for other people simply because such high quality premix soil is available today. You can purchase premix with most of the micronutrients in the soil. Since the premix is made from primarily organic materials, it will probably have some bacteria present which will bloom when moisture is added.

Ted

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gixxerific
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That's it you're kicked out of here.:lol:

I actually use a mix myself sometimes but I guess I didn't complete my thought originally, I do that a lot.

I was mainly thinking about germination. Sorry for the confusion. Though basically what I said is true you "could" be bringing the nasty's with it which is why "I" would not use it as a starter mix. But bad soil will compact a lot more if it were straight soil not mixed with all this fancy smancy lightening material we use today. But than again I had some "Top Soil" I got from Lowe's in 2008 that I put in pot's and it became a rock, seriously concrete like I had to use quite some strength to chip it apart with a garden trowel. :lol: :shock:

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Ozark Lady
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I had a bag of potting soil, last spring, and I couldn't get it moist. I ended up filling a tub of water, and kneading it, and nothing... it was a suspension and simply would not mix up.
I don't recall the exact brand, but it was Scott company because I ended up emailing them about it... After two days, covered with water, it still simply would not mix... stayed in suspension.

I gave up and simply threw it out.
So, not all commercial soil mixes are created equal either.
It was allegedly a seed starter mix... How do you start seeds with dry soil floating in water... It was unreal... like there was oil coating the soil or something... never saw anything quite like that.

Scott did offer to refund. But, I had had the bag for awhile... I suppose it was too old? I knew it was dry, hence, my attempt to moisten it a day or two before planning to start seedlings.

A few years back, a box vendor, gathered up all torn bags, and sent them to the "warehouse" Where pallets were made up... they were all mixed together... fertilizers, compost, potting mix, lawn food, pesticides... on a pallet. The pallet was sold to employees for $5.00. It must have weighed a ton... my 3/4 ton truck squatted when the fork lift loaded that pallet on it. And we bought... 3 or 4 pallets. We sorted them, and stacked them in my gazebo... I still have probably 20 bags in there! Well, it was one of those bags, and since there was probably 40 in the pallet... for $5.00 what would they refund my quarter? Too bad the vendor no longer does that. I assumed the soil would not go "bad", but I do plan to spend extra time wetting it down...

Does anyone know of any other problem with this building full of these bags? I did remove the fertilizers and pesticides since I don't use either one of these.

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applestar
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What you describe, in my experience, is potting soil made with a lot of completely dehydrated peat moss. You need HOT WATER to reconstitute those.

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Ozark Lady
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Great tip, if any more of the bags act that way... I will try hot water on it.
There was an awful lot of compost materials, that were just not composted down enough, mixed into it too. So, if I had a compost pile, that would have been what to do with it... heat to get the peat going, and moisture to continue breaking it down...
Live and learn...
The longer I live.. the more I need to learn..

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gixxerific
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Hot water it is. I was planting tom seeds in peat pellets last night. My kids were asking what the dry pellets were, I told them they were the same as the ballooned "pots" I was putting seeds in. Than went to show them how they swelled up with cold water and nothing happened sitting in a cup of cold water. Started thinking, it needs warm water tried again with warm water and it swelled up, no problem. So there is something with the temp of the water. Don't know why, don't care why but it works. :lol:

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Duh_Vinci
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Great advise, warm water indeed works, and works very well!!!

Regards,
D

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tn_veggie_gardner
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I use the Jiffy peat pellet greenhouses every year with great success. About a day or two after with the cotyledons (first set of leaves) have spread open, I pot them up to 16 oz plastic cups though. Peat pellets are great for seed starting, but that's all they're good for. If you leave them in the pellets for too long, you will definitely run into problems. There are all kinds of horror stories, along with pictures, out there of peat pellet started plants where people have not taken the screen off & the roots have a terrible time growing out of it. Then, the plant either dies or is very unhealthy and barely produces at all, if any. Anyways, your best bet is like previously suggested, to wet the peat pellets thoroughly, then remove all of the screen as carefully as possible from every pellet.

- Steve



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