Sunday, May 10, 2009

Plants indoors...Large Scale. Part 2

Below are some pictures of Greg's (my farmer friend) plants. The pictures were all taken 4/13/09. His plants were all growing fast! Greg had an incident where he got some organic gardening soil and it had high nitrogen level and it contained manure... Shortly after he planted over 120 plants in the new soil he found out his plants were all dying! He moved quickly to get his plants out of that soil and was able to save quite a few. Unfortunately he lost 80 tomato plants to that mistake. Greg then proceeded to throw that soil out into a hole his dog had dug. When his dog found out all it would do is bark at it! As Greg told me "even the dogs did not like that soil."
Greg's mistake when he purchased that organic soil was not checking to see if it contained high nitrogen levels and manure. The soil contained both with the result that when he transplanted his seedlings they were burnt. Seedlings cannot deal with the high nitrogen levels that a lot of common gardening soils contain, even though large plants can. The soil I and now Greg use is a soil that is in commercial use called Fafard 4-P. This soil only contains Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, Processed Pine Bark, Vermiculite, and Perlite.
I recommend using a soil like this for seed germination. Should you purchase your soil at a local garden center I would first ask an employee if they have a soil for seed starting and then check the label to make sure it does not contain high nitrogen levels. The soil that my friend Greg used in the story above had a nitrogen level of 10-13%.

Tomato plants.
Pepper plants.
More tomatoes.
Plants in front of main window.
Biggest Tomato plants as of 4-13-09.
I have mostly finished up with finals at Colorado State University. I still have to go up to campus for a test Monday or Tuesday. I was planning to rototill a new section of garden today, but it is raining so I don't think that is going to happen.
Hopefully I will be posting more pictures today.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua

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