What's best to use in the "pots"?

Kentucky bluegrass, Fescue, Rye and Bent, etc
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Ric Clint
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What's best to use in the "pots"?

Post by Ric Clint » October 19th, 2017, 1:10 pm

It seems like most people when doing a renovation will also do some pots of the same seed cultivars so that if there are any rain washouts or thin areas later, that they can then transplant the pots into the yard if needed. So my question is what do you all generally use in the pots? Anything you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot... like just Peat Moss alone, or Potting Soil, or a mixture of the dirt from the actual yard and store-bought soil from the big box stores, etc...


Thanks!



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STL
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Re: What's best to use in the "pots"?

Post by STL » October 19th, 2017, 8:36 pm

I use bagged topsoil and mix in a little peat moss or compost. Not sure if that's worth the extra effort but it makes me feel better. I then top it off with a little dirt or compost. I definitely would not use just peat, but any bagged or soil from the yard should be fine.

lVlrBoJang1es
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Re: What's best to use in the "pots"?

Post by lVlrBoJang1es » October 23rd, 2017, 9:07 am

Why not do an experiment? I would assume what works "best" for someone, could be mediocre for you. Many variables to take into consideration here... At least that’s the approach I took this year for my first go at it.

In my setup, I had three trays with 12 pots in each tray (3 columns x 4 row arrangement). In each of the 4 rows, I tried something different. Across the columns, I maintained the same conditions so as to have 3 samples in each of the 4 growing conditions.

In each of the three trays, I experimented with one variable category – tray 1 was drainage configurations (newspaper balled up in the bottom, pea gravel, newspaper+peagravel, none), tray 2 was soil mixtures (soil from my lawn, potting soil, potting soil+compost mix, potting soil+compost+sand mix), tray 3 was different top dressings (none, potting soil, compost, paper shredding). This is of course not a purely scientific study (I could only do my best to keep the other variables in control), but it at least gave me a direction to head.

This year the most favorable results were:
Tray 1: was nearly the same, but I’d say the newspaper drainage system worked best.
Tray 2: soil+compost+sand mix seemed to work the best in terms of growth once the seedlings matured a bit.
Tray 3: potting soil top dressing by far had the best germination rate.

Next year, I’ll compare review my notes and start mixing/matching the tests conditions.

And I will say this; ALL of the pots were transplantable at one point had I not given the squirrels enough time to realize the pots contained prime soil to bury their nuts. Those bastards wiped out nearly half of my yield about a week before I had time to transplant.

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