Jiffy pots & I dont' mean the little tabs either...

[lesa]

Just went to a "Plant Propagation" talk at one of our local colleges. Someone asks about peat pots. The speaker made an interesting point- she said if you use them, make sure you bury the entire pot. If not the moisture gets wicked right up the sides of the pot... I have been guilty of leaving a few edges showing. Might be another reason I didn't like them...
First choice is always my recycled milk containers (the cardboard with wax).

 

[aussieheelr]

SO glad you told the story of the Siamese incedent of 2010... I have a siamese mix and I can tell you it runs in the breed She likes to bat the plants like they're her favorite kitty toy. She digs in my mint bed... and scratch herself against the roses lol. And the personality, Penny always has something to say.

Now back to peat pots. I'd have to agree with everyone, they didn't break down very well and the plants roots bound up a bit and they grew much slower than the store bought ones.

 

[AmyRey]

lol @ "the mothers of barn cats"

 

[Jared77]

Glad you liked it

 

[Holachicka]

Great story!!

I've used the peat pots, and they are ok, but I have always peeled the pot off before planting. This year I made newspaper pots and really like them so far! run a search on google for them if you're interested!

 

[VeggieNessa]

I cut mine (I cut several slits down the sides of the peat pot) and fan them out as I re-pot the plant. HTH

 

[Rozzie]

Whenever I buy anything in a Jiffy Pot, I always tear the entire pot off before planting the item. I tear the pot up and put it in the compost bin or bury it if I'm planting a bush or a tree. The problem is that I've dug them up a year later sometimes and they were still mostly in one piece. I am going to try SOAKING them in a bucket of water sometime and see what happens.

I use the little Jiffy pellets. However, when I plant stuff from them, I tear the little net fabric right off of them. I find the plants do much better that way. Plus, I'm usually transplanting early, before the roots are all the way through the pellets into the netting.

 

[Dave2000]

I start some seeds in Jiffy and other peat pots. Roots not only break through easily, they already had with the seedlings only a few weeks old.

They do lose water faster for sure, but it just means I give them more water (daily watering cycle scaled back to every other day if in close quarters so water loss decreases).

One initial problem if you cover the top with plastic to reduce water loss is the tendency for mold to grow. A spray with 1:10 solution OTC hydrogen peroxide to water wipes out the mold in an application or two.

One issue is supposedly certain plants like peppers don't like the more acidic pH of peat, or peat pots, but our tapwater that I use to water is a bit alkaline so it seems to not be much of an issue here.

One positive aspect is I put a small bit of dirt in a plastic tray before setting the pots in it, and keep that dirt moist. It encourages more root growth than I'd otherwise have in the same size plastic or other unpermeable containers. Many end up with roots coming out the bottom that are longer than the plant is tall for the first few weeks. The roots can get a bit tangled and broken when it is time to separate them for planting but I feel I still end up with more roots than I otherwise would in the same amount of space.

Overall I can take them or leave them though, I also planted in plastic pots and used same seed starter soil and don't see any significant difference in growth rate "yet", but the plastic pots are larger so eventually that factor will weigh against the peat pots because I am delayed in putting them outside due to unusually strong windy days this spring.

 

[StupidBird]

even worse than peat pots for drying out, are coir/coconut fiber pots...I tested a flat this spring. Couldn't tear them apart, seem to dry out FAST and I'm worried they'll never break down. The plants - marigolds - all seem stunted, but I've had some trouble with a bad bag of soil. Any one else try to coir stuff?

Best: recycled yogurt cups and soda bottles.

 

[thistlebloom]

Apparently the diverse opinions seem to come down to how you manage your pots. I like the peat pots,as I've already said, and what I like is the ease of plugging the whole mess right into the planting hole without disturbing the roots.
This year I plugged my pots into a big plastic salad type box when the
plants roots poked out a tiny bit. I just put a layer of regular potting soil in the bottom, stuck 8 peat pots on that and filled the rest up with soil. That was 3 weeks ago or so, and Saturday I planted some of those in the garden.
Here's a shot of the roots.

They had no trouble breaking out of that peat pot!