Posted on 02/05/2022 6:01:07 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
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Having never used it myself, I looked it up. To me, the CONS outweigh the PROS, but if you’re mixing it with potting and/or garden soil and peat for your raised beds, I would probably mix it in there.
The Benefits Of Using Coconut Coir
Let’s take a moment to cover the pros of this grow medium.
Quick harvests and big yields: When used for drain-to-waste growing, coco coir gives excellent results. With the right coco coir nutrients in your water bath, your plants spend less time searching for food and more time growing. Learn more about using the right coco coir nutrients here.
Plenty of room for the root system: Coco coir offers a rare combination of excellent water retention, reliable drainage and ideal aeration. It gives the roots plenty of room, allowing for optimum air exposure.
pH-neutral value: Coco coir has a neutral pH range of 5.2–6.8, but you’ll still need nutrient support because this range will fluctuate over time. Learn why maintaining a balanced coco coir pH is so important here.
Minimizes harmful pathogens and reduces the risk of pests: This medium boasts antifungal properties, which keeps the roots happy. It can repel some pests, meaning your grow is easier to maintain. (If you’ve experienced plant pests or diseases in the past, here are some plant protection tips to help up your game.)
Environmentally conscious product: On average, a coconut tree produces 150 coconuts annually. Coco coir uses parts of the fruit that used to go to waste.
Reusable medium: When properly treated, coco coir can be reused. It’s durable, but you need to make sure you prep it correctly for the next growth cycle to guarantee a hearty crop.
What Are The Drawbacks Of Using Coco Coir?
Any grow medium has its limitations, and you have to understand the traits of coco coir to ensure you develop the best crop possible.
Possible high salt content: Make sure you research how the coco medium you choose is produced. If the husks were soaked in salt water, confirm it was rinsed with fresh water by the manufacturer, or learn how to properly do it yourself.
Chemical treatment: At the end of the drying process, coir bales might be treated with chemical agents to ensure pathogens didn’t bloom inside. Learning how it was treated may help you manage your crop, since the chemical residue could affect plant growth. Read the product label or refer to the manufacturer’s website to learn more.
Can lock out calcium, magnesium and iron: Because of its high cation exchange rate, coco coir stores and releases nutrients as needed, but it tends to hold calcium, magnesium and iron. This means you’ll need use specific coco coir nutrients to boost Ca, Mg and Fe levels for healthy crops.
Coco Coir Features That May Be A Pro Or A Con
Coco must be fed daily. In order to overcome the cation exchange capacity of the coco, it is still important to use a coco-specific nutrient, but you also want to feed quicker than the coco can negatively react with the nutrients. Coco is extremely difficult to overwater, holding on to oxygen even when drenched, so some hand-watering soil growers may find coco requires more work. However, commercial growers often love this feature because they can connect automated drip lines to the plants.
https://www.advancednutrients.com/articles/coco-coir-grow-medium/
That said, the BEST soil you can come up with for raised garden beds will mimic what Mel uses in his ‘Square Foot Gardening’ which is a combination of:
Peat Moss
Vermiculite
Compost
For the home gardener that has to purchase these components, I would recommend garden soil and peat moss. You can skip the vermiculite if you want to cut down on expense, but make sure you’re using a good mulch such as stray, because THAT will break down each season and eventually give you The Best Soil Ever. :) (That’s the ‘compost’ component.)
So, spend your $$ on garden soil, peat moss and straw, and if you make your own compost, or can get it from your municipality, you’re golden.
Also - fertilize SPECIFICALLY to what you’re growing. Learn what your plant needs, and give it to them. The soil provides some nutrition (and will provide more in the future if you’re continuing to add compost & straw) but the soil is just there as a home for your plants. It’s up to you to feed them properly.
If you want to make soil for raised beds BY THE BOOK, follow the instructions here:
https://growingrealfood.com/How-to-make-garden-soil-for-raised-beds/
anyway, I had read that coco coir is more enviromentally sound since it uses ground up shells...instead of using peat moss....
thx for the answer....
Yeah, that’s a selling point. Peat is such a better growing medium, though. And, I’m pretty sure Canada isn’t going to run out of peat bogs in our lifetime.
Peat Bogs aren’t NEARLY as glamorous as, say, saving the Rain Forest. You’ll never see any of the chi-chi Enviroweenies up to their waders in a Peat Bog, LOL!
Same thing with Cypress Mulch - which I love because it WORKS WELL and is light enough for me to handle a big old honkin’ bag of the stuff.
I had many customers railing on me at the Garden Center for even daring to sell it because I was personally ‘killing the Florida Everglades.’ (It’s from fallen and rotting wood. They’re not clear-cutting the Everglades to make mulch!)
Yep. I did it! It’s all on me, LOL! Now, let’s see you bike down from ‘The People’s Republic of Madistan’ (no flying! no car travel!) to the Everglades and pet a poisonous snake or an alligator and tell them how much you care!
Oy! These people!
Greeneyes would’ve loved this! :)
Cheap and Free Sources of Landscaping Materials
If your home’s landscape has become less than lovely, you might be tempted to make a beeline for the nearest nursery for new materials. And while their choices of colored mulch, decorative walkway stones and fancy planter borders can win you most-beautiful-yard-on-the-block bragging rights, their high prices can leave you with a less than lovely dent in your budget.
So before hitting up the garden center at your favorite big-box store, try these cheap and free sources of landscaping materials to spruce up your yard. It might take a bit of legwork to collect the materials, but you’ll enjoy your beautifully landscaped lawn and yard all the more knowing how much money you saved.
Lots of additional links for even more savings. The Dollar Stretcher is a site I’ve liked for many, many years. Good, practical advice.
All links below open in a new tab/window.
These are soil blocks for those that have never heard of them
They're slightly compressed soil mix and can be put together as above or you can just start out with the biggest one without a dimple for accepting a smaller block. I'll probably go with the bigger two. I'll be making my own block makers because they're not cheap and I am. I'm also a fabricator so it's not a big deal for me to make them.
Block maker - soil blocks negate the need for pots.
The standardized components mentioned above are mostly about the trays. Nursery trays are called 1020 trays because the inner tray, if used, is about 10" x 20" in size.
Here's an inner and outer tray. The inner tray is a 72 cell tray and they're available from 32 cell up to 200 cell for different seed/seedling sizes.
They also make clear plastic covers from 2" to 7" tall for keeping the humidity up during germination. Once all the seeds have popped up, the cover is typically removed.
Next is lighting. One of the cute little seed starting kits has a groove in the lid where you set a special LED strip light. Setting the light on the lid seemed a little hokey to me and I don't know if it comes with light hanging hardware, chains and s-hooks. It would be great for micro-greens which are smaller than baby greens like the ones they sell in the stores for salad.
So I started looking at grow lights and all the grower's supply stores want a hefty price for them. I ended up finding a 2 foot grow light from Lowes and also found the same thing on ebay for a couple of bucks more for a pair. Lowes is a 90 mile round trip for me so ebay it is.
Here's what I put together with most items being from Wholesale Growers Direct.
BOOST LIGHTING 2 FT LED Grow Light Full Spectrum, 1,900 lumens from Lowes for $19.98. From ebay 2 for $42.99
Jump Start Hot House w/Heat Mat, Tray, 72-Cell Insert, 7.5" dome for $29.99 from WGD
The Heat Mats normally raise the temp 10-20 degrees but since we heat with a wood stove only, it can get pretty chilly by morning sometimes so I'd like more control. They make a temp controller that allows you to set a temperature on these heat mats.
$35.30 from WGD
According to johnny's, these are the proper trays to use for soil blocks(out of stock at johnny's) so I'll be getting a few of them and will use the 72 cell trays to start seeds in the high tunnel.
Mesh Tray, 10" x 20" again, from WGD - Wholesale Growers Direct as they had everything I needed and at the best prices. bootstrapfarmer.com also has low prices but didn't have everything I need.
I realize I don't need this fancy setup. I could use whatever I can find laying around for trays and covers but I'd still need the heat mat, temp controller and grow lights which is most of the cost. All the plastics, trays & lids, are cheap so why not go with standard, interchangeable items? The heat mat is $20 and the heat mat plus bottom tray, inner 72 cell tray and clear lid is $30 and then the mesh tray is $1.45 so for an extra 12 bucks per unit it's worth it in my book. I plan having two setups and will buy some cell trays with assorted cell counts. For a couple bucks per tray, I might as well get a bunch of them.
If you have better indoor climate control than me, here's the kit I mentioned above and it is standard 1020 tray based and comes with an 18" LED strip light that sets in a groove in the lid and runs at 1500 lumens. $41.51 at WGD or on ebay starting at $43 with free shipping
Great addition! Thanks!
You can spend a ton of $$$ on seed starting. I started using Jiffy Pellets a number of years ago, and I’m never going back.
I also save any plastic, flat-bottomed container I come across to use as ‘seed starting trays.’ 1020 flats are ridiculously expensive now!
Winter ended 48 hours ago in central Connecticut. We are now in pre-Spring.
It’s 40°F, with 55°F expected for SAT. Feb is gonna be a cakewalk.
I have a feeling I’ll be getting ALL THE SNOW in April this year. We’re in a drought, so we’re looking for a change to our weather pattern.
We only have a few inches on the ground. Last year I had very confused Robins hopping around on the snow while looking for worms! ;)
Sometime in March begins garlic mustard eradication. Less than an acre. I expect a few hours per day of pulling for 20 days.
If I give up, it will conquer my forest the way it has conquered the neighbors’.
(Note to reader: do not compost garlic mustard.
Send to dump or burn in fire pit.)
Weather Joke!
Temperature is relative:
35° above zero: New York landlords finally turn up the heat. People in Wisconsin have the last cookout before it gets cold.
20° above Zero: People in Arizona all die. Wisconsin closes the windows.
0°: Californians fly away to Mexico. People in Wisconsin get out their winter coats.
10° below zero: Hollywood disintegrates. The Girl Scouts in Wisconsin are selling cookies door to door.
36mm (72 per flat)
42mm (50 per flat)
50mm (36 per flat)
1 inch = 25.4mm
$13.99 for trays with clear lids/domes already filled with pellets. Trays look like pretty thin plastic in the pics.
$4.99 for above per flat quantities of pellets sold in bags as refills at ferrymorse. Looks like they're straight peat moss. Do you fertilize once the plants have used up their seed food?
The humidity domes can be expensive. Most places want $10-12+ for them. WholesaleGrowersDirect has the 2" tall for $2.95 and the kits I'm putting together come with 7.5" tall. The 2" tall versions are better for germination it seems.
GrowersSupply has then for $2.89
https://www.growerssupply.com/farm/supplies/ProductDisplay?mfPartNumber=109047
Both places have flats for $2-3.
Potting mix recipes including Elliot Coleman's soil block mixes & Jean-Martin Fortier’s “All-Purpose” Mix; https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pottingmixes.pdf
I knew a guy on a homsteading forum that was into composting in a big way. Extreme composting.
Someone on his extreme composting thread asked about the leaf mold/humus found in the woods and he said that was his favorite stuff to plant in. We bought a hunk of woods and I proceeded to clear land, mainly by hand but I have an old garden tractor with a grader blade and dragged a bunch of that stuff into the garden area. Taters grew great that year. Bigger and more blemish free than store bought. I’ve also been scraping leaves and the leaf mold from where I want grass and pushing it down into low spots to reclaim it later. It’s not huge on nutrients but does have a lot of microscopic critters, beneficial bacteria, mycelium etc. Also fluffy and can be used in potting mix, in beds or straight in the garden. Decent peat replacement.
Raised bed soil is somewhere between potting soil and regular soil. Also has info on Coir.
Some consider coir to be more environmentally sustainable than peat because it is a by-product of industry rather than a product that is mined from a natural ecosystem. However, one must consider that coir travels much farther in shipping, originating from India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, the Ivory Coast, and Central America. Because of the different areas of origin, the quality and attributes of coir can vary drastically depending on its source, with coir from Sri Lanka considered to be the highest quality and consistency (Abad et al., 2005). Some coir is processed with salt water, and this should be avoided due to high salinity
https://attra.ncat.org/product/potting-mixes-for-certified-organic-production/ One thing I have quite a bit of is charcoal or biochar as it's called in AG. It holds a ton of water so I should be able to use it in lieu of perlite/vermiculite.
Found this in the pdf above;
Biochar is incredibly porous with a high CEC, meaning that it can increase the air space, water reten-tion, and nutrient retention in a potting mix. Research conducted at Iowa State University indicates that screened biochar can be used successfully to replace perlite in greenhouse potting media. The high pH of biochar can also neutralize the acidity of peat and eliminate the need for lime. A mix with 30% biochar and 70% peat moss had a pH and physical characteristics very similar to a commercial peat-perlite potting mix.
In addition to imparting physical properties to a potting mix, biochar has been shown to augment the biology of growing media to increase the population of beneficial microbes, which can lead to improved plant growth and yield. In a greenhouse study in Israel, fine biochar added to a coconut fiber media at 1% to 5% resulted in increased growth and production for peppers and increased growth for tomatoes (Graber et a l., 2010). In addition, peppers and tomatoes grown in biochar amended media exhibited systemic resistance to gray mold and powdery mildew (Elad et al., 2010). The researchers found a greater abundance of beneficial microbes, including Trichoderma, rhizobacteria, and actinomycetes, in the media amended with biochar, indicating that the biochar had stimulated shifts in microbial populations towards beneficial plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and fungi. Either the shift in the microbial community or low doses of chemicals from the biochar may have been the cause of the increased plant growth and systemic resistance.
https://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/research/thermochemical/biochar
I have goat and chicken manure here, fresh and aged. I need to build a better goat shed and maybe have a steel grate floor with a catchment tray underneath. That will catch the urine too and increase the nitrogen quite a bit.
Here's a handy list. NPK of everything; http://www.lundproduce.com/N-P-K-Value-of-Everything.html
Using the woods is a great idea! The nearest trees to my garden are all evergreen, though. I plan on using all the fallen pine needles I can rake up around my future blueberry shrubs.
Our main chunk of woods is pretty far from the house & garden, but it might be worth a trip there and back with the 4x and the trailer. :)
I buy the Jiffy 7 Extra Depth pellets from Jung’s. Love. Them. They work in any sort of container, so I don’t have to specifically use 1020 flats.
https://www.jungseed.com/product/J53234/1046
I usually supplement with Jiffy pellets from my local Farm & Fleet if I don’t have enough. (I never have enough!)
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