The soil blocks are doing fine except the Cole seedlings. With the dried blood, they are just too eager to grow. I have been thinking of using 100% compost and trying different things to bind it together, after all that is what they will be growing in when planted in the garden. The right side of my head said yes do it while the left side said, no, you already have the answer. It was something somebody said in one of the comments but I could not remember. I do not know how many times I scrolled through the journal reading and rereading the comments on all the soil block posts. I just could not find it. In a deep sleep at 2:00 this morning, my eyes popped open and I said to myself “Core Sample”. You know that was the end of my sleep, I came down stares and looked up the Core sample post and there it was. And here it is:
Sinfonian says: March 12, 2009 at 5:31 pm (Edit)
Cool idea John. And yes, it does look like a soil block. Maybe when I make more I’ll just do it in the garden pulling mix from the beds. Hehe.
The core samples will contain worm casings, garden soil that the worms brought up and all stages of decomposed compost. To produce 100 SBs I will need 16 cores, guess what I will be doing today? Also the SB composition will be the same as the garden.
As usual all comments are welcome……John
John's Garden Journal 
Sounds like a good idea to me. You might have a bit of damping off, but no more than if you were growing the seedlings in the garden itself, I wouldn’t think. I just hope you don’t get a cutworm or two in the process!
I just took a big plastic container and dumped in a large bag of organic potting soil (Miracle Grow with poultry manure), two bags of seed starter mix that was on sale for half price, a bag of perlite (wish I had left it out and used vermiculite…it’s like planting in popcorn!) and a couple of bags of Yakima Valley loam from the dollar store. It looks pretty good (except for the “popcorn”), and I think it will hold together well. I probably have enough mixed up to last me a couple of years!
Granny
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Sounds like a good idea to me. You might have a bit of damping off, but no more than if you were growing the seedlings in the garden itself, I wouldn’t think. I just hope you don’t get a cutworm or two in the process!
I just took a big plastic container and dumped in a large bag of organic potting soil (Miracle Grow with poultry manure), two bags of seed starter mix that was on sale for half price, a bag of perlite (wish I had left it out and used vermiculite…it’s like planting in popcorn!) and a couple of bags of Yakima Valley loam from the dollar store. It looks pretty good (except for the “popcorn”), and I think it will hold together well. I probably have enough mixed up to last me a couple of years!
Granny
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OMG, I’m keeping John up at nights now. Great, add that to the list of things I’m doing wrong… add world hunger while you’re at it, hehe.
Hey, if I helped John out, then a few more dozen times and we’re even after the soil block he made me.
Granny, do you think a cutworm will survive 15 minutes on high in the microwave? No way.
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