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CHAPTER 10
POTTING AND PLANTING
If youre used to gardening, if you have had any sort of conventional gardening experience, you have a good background for hydroponics. In hydroponics there are some slight variations from conventional gardening depending on the medium used, the types of plants you want to grow, the size of the seedlings and the growing environment, but in general, hydroponic gardening should be like conventional gardening with all the hard
and heavy work taken out of it. The following will give you a few ideas of the variations.
With smaller seedlings, it is better to plant into half filled pots as shown above. Then backfill later after the seedling has grown larger. For most seedlings, the ideal stage to transplant them is when they are about 2 inches tall. They will establish quicker than older and larger seedlings.
youre into recycling, the round 5 litre ice cream containers could be good but make sure you have good drainage holes in the sides of the containers at the bottom. And that brings up a point. How do you stop the medium going through the holes into the nutrient ? A layer of scoria is a good answer. A couple of sheets of scrunched up newspaper is another. The water easily penetrates the paper but the medium cannot. Old net curtains. Panty hose. Anything you fancy. Plant the seedlings right up to the base of the leaves, gently, and thats very gently. Firm the media around the plant and youre done. If you think that in the shallow pot there is not enough medium, youre probably wrong. The Autopot System ensures that the plants get ample nutrient and its the nutrient they need, not the medium. Small pots can grow very large plants. A 4 x 2 punnet will grow huge bunches of silver beet to 2 tall. A 10 pot will support a 12 tomato plant.
To transfer plants in 3-6 inch pots, just remove the root ball and place it directly into the larger pot. Backfill with perlite or stone chips. It does not have to be the same growing medium used for the plant.
Place the plant into position half filled with the growing medium.
Plant the seedlings as shown above with 4 to 5 seedlings along the edge of the pot.
Planting Density
How many plants to a pot ? How many do you want ? Plant a number of plants in a single pot and you will get a lot of small to medium size plants. Plant just a single plant and that plant will grow relatively large. But if youre into spaghetti and you want to grow your Roma tomatoes in a 12 pot with some sweet basil, chives and parsley grown at the base, youve got all the ingredients of a great spaghetti sauce in one pot. Do it. The Autopot System caters very well for crowding at the base. If theres a problem of crowding it will be in the leaf zone and not at the roots. Good trellising or other support can solve that problem provided that all parts of the canopy of the plants get good light. All rules are made to be broken and the rules explained above do not apply to lettuces. Certainly they will grow more than one to a pot but they prefer to have their own space for their root systems, so instead of planting in a group in the centre of the pot, plant them spaced around the rim of the pot. And strawberries can be planted not only in the top of the pot, but you can cut holes in the side of the pot and grow from the sides too.
more time is available before the plant becomes root bound. The coarsest particles are used in larger containers for plants such as fruit trees. Coarse particles also tend to provide a degree of drought protection. Finer particles on the other hand are the most suited to rapidly growing plants like lettuces and annuals that have a rapid development and need to spread their roots very fast. Finer particles carry more water but also surrender that water to plants more readily so they are more drought resistant. These, as all broad generalities, will naturally have exceptions.
Mixed Media
Quite often you can achieve a desired result by combining media with different characteristics or you can use one medium to supplement the deficiencies of another. For instance, perlite may not satisfy the moisture needs of some plants that have a great need for large amounts of water, but a mixture of 70% perlite and 30% vermiculite would certainly balance that deficiency.
Planting technique using a plant established in potting mix.
water but cannot lift it very high. Rockwool normally comes in a slab so there is no need to use pots. Some growool comes in loose form in a bag so it can be used to fill a pot. Fibres are most suited to short term crops such as tomatoes. It is difficult to mix and should not be mixed with other media except as previously mentioned in a block as a starter block for a transplanted plant. In Autopot System, growool is ideal to use on the capillary mat systems. The ideal situation is to raise seeds in small cubes of rockwool about 20mm cubes are good, with these cubes then being inserted into larger slabs or even simply placed on top of larger slabs. Alternatively, seedlings grown in other media or even in potting mix can simply be inserted into growool slabs. In planning what plants you will grow in a growool slab be aware that the plant supporting ability of a block of growool is not great and you may need some means of support for the plant as it grows.
Organic media
Organic media are most commonly by-products of forestry or agriculture. The most common as well as most commonly available is sawdust and this can be used in Autopot System to very good effect. Sawdust absorbs water very well and retains is just as well and is generally good for relatively short term crops such as cucumbers. Sawdust does tend to become too wet when it is used for a longer period and starts to break down further. The main disadvantage with sawdust is that it tends to compete with the plant for available nitrogen due to the high C:N ratio it has. This shows up by the plants yellowing but can be compensated by increasing the nitrogen (part A) portion of the two part nutrient mix. We suggest you use it for interest if you wish, but when a ready supply of alternate material is available, it is better not to rely on organic media. If you have to use an organic medium, then make sure it is well composted before use.
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