Growing medium

[jayemcee]

When you buy small plants grown commercially,ie. cabbage plants, they are in a quite firm, fibrous compound(?) that bears little resemblance to ordinary potting or seed compost.
Any idea what this is and can it be purchased? It seems to produce sturdy plants. Would like to get hold of some for next season.

[Hawkwalk]

young plants are grown in many different media but often young veg is grown in 100% peat which can be fibrous. The other very fibrous media used is coir which is used as a peat free alternative and may be what you are seeing. The problem with Coir is it leaches out the nutrients very quickly and needs a lot of feeding.

Peat use is being greatly reduced so what you find to purchase in bags now looks very much different to the commercial products but can work equally as well if not better.

[jayemcee]

Thank you Hawkwalk. We don't use peat and were not very taken with the peat substitute that we bought, but will keep our eyes open. The stuff our red cabbage was in looked almost like a hard sponge? Expect that there are many things available to the growers that never come on to the amateur market. Thanks for your input.

[Hawkwalk]

The hard sponge could be a rockwool block which can be used as a propagation module. Where did you buy it from?

just out of interest, which peat substitute did you buy? I have been trying some and have had some very good results.

[jayemcee]

It was some time ago and from memory it was coir. We found that it dried out very quickly and was then difficult to get it properly wet again. Anyway Thank you for the info on reckwool blocks.

[jayemcee]

rockwall even!!