Hi Sherrill. Happy Wednesday! You asked a good question in your comment on
Part 1 about light. I should clarify up front that I'm not going to try & grow my seedlings with just the paltry window light that seeps in through the trees in our back yard. No way. I have a big ol' 5' wide shop light that should have a stand built by Saturday & all the seedlings will be lined up across the top of that shelf on a board under two florescent bulbs. Seeds, in general, don't need light to germinate-- only warmth and moisture. As long as I have some good strong light for when they emerge from the soil, we'll be all good!
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| Color-coded plant labels: Green - Green Planet, Red - Jiffy, Black - Black Gold. |
Okay, after planting seeds in all three mixes last night, today I would like address what I noticed about each brand.
Packaging:
The Black Gold packaging irritated me right away, as there were what looked to be deliberate air circulation holes punched in regular intervals all over the plastic bag containing the soil; anyone who has dealt with bagged soil before knows what this mean! Wherever the bag went, a thin dusting of gritty, statically charged soil trailed after! I tried taping up all the holes I could find, but finally had to put the whole bag into another bag just to keep from having my whole house covered in ground up sphagnum peat moss & perlite! Not fun.
The Jiffy mix comes packaged in a heavy duty, crinkly (aka noisy!) plastic bag-- no air holes, so no mess. Both of these brands are heat sealed at the top & have to be cut open to access the soil, which also means there is no way to reseal these bags after opening it.
To my happy surprise, however, the Green Plant Naturals (GPN) soil arrived in a sturdy (but not crinkly!) weight plastic bag with a resealable, zip-lock opening at the top! Nice. Of the three, of course, only GPN had a friendly personalized note written on it too!
- Conclusion: GPN wins in the packaging category, hands down.
Composition & Texture:
As you can clearly see in the above photo, there is a distinct difference in color, texture & composition between the three soil mixes.
The Black gold mix, which, according to the web site is comprised of
Canadian Sphagnum peat Moss(which has been double-screened to remove larger particles and sticks); fine perlite and vermiculite, has a noticeably high concentration of perlite (the white rock particles). Perlite is used to provide oxygen and good drainage to the mix so the sprouting roots can breathe. To make perlite, natural volcanic glass (obsidian) is heated to extreme temperatures until it expands to 7-16 times its original volume. Perlite is common in all commercial potting mixes, and it is clearly evident in both the Black Gold and the Jiffy mix.
The Black Gold mix arrived dry to the touch and clumpy. The clumps were easy to break up, which resulted in a dry, fluffy medium for planting seeds. Once the seeds were planted and I attempted to water them in, however, the soil actually repelled the water, displacing the soil in the cups. The water eventually settled in, but I'm now unsure how much the seeds were moved around in the cups; I doubt they are still in the center, where I planted them!
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| Black Gold - Lots of perlite. Dry & clumpy. |
The back of the Jiffy bag states that their mix consists of 40%-50% sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite, lime, and "wetting medium" (whatever that is... perlite, maybe?!). Of the three mixes, this mix has the dryest, most processed feel to it. It has a very fine, almost powdered texture, as all of the particles have been ground to tiny pieces, as can be seen below.
It was difficult to photograph, but this mixture also has a high
vermiculite content, which is apparent from the color, lofty texture, and the sheen of the mica-like vermiculite particles. Like perlite, vermiculite is created by exposing a mineral, (biotite or phlogopite) to high heat. Pouring water into this mix had an even more disruptive effect than trying to water in the previous mix. Not unlike trying to pour water into dust, this mix billowed up in the cup, repelling the water and, no doubt, moving my seeds to some unknown region of the planting pot. It did soak in after a few minutes, though.
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| Jiffy Mix - Lots of vermiculite. Dry & powdery. |
Of the three mixes, the GPN Seed Starting Mix is the only one to contain anything close to actual soil: compost! Of the three, it looks the most like natural soil, resembling the humus-rich top soil you might find on a forest floor. This mix is comprised of coco coir, sphagnum peat moss, fine volcanic pumice (instead of the highly processed perlite or vermiculite), and organic compost. Of the three, this is the only mix that does not seem overly-processed. The organic matter is clearly apparent, and it arrived in its bag perfectly moist with a pleasant, cushiony texture. The few clumps that I encountered were easily broken up, and appeared to be made up of compost.
Honestly, of the three mixes, this is the mix I was the most excited about tucking my seeds into! And all you garden-nerds out there know what I mean! Unlike the other two mixes, the water that I poured into the pots containing the Green Planet Naturals mix soaked right in & was absorbed immediately, and I am confident that my little tomato, pepper, eggplant & onion seeds are sitting tight, right where I placed them!
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| Green Planet Naturals - Most like actual soil. Moist & humus-rich! |
On a final note, I should add that both my husband, who knows next to nothing about soil mixes, and my seven year old son, who's spent much of his life digging in the dirt next to mama, both commented that the GPN mix looked like the best mix. As my son put it, "That one's the right color of brown. It looks like dirt."
- Conclusion: If I had to choose between these three mixes based on the packaging, the composition & the texture alone, I would choose the Green Planet Naturals Seed Starting Mix in a heartbeat. I'm excited and, also, truthfully, a little anxious to see if there's a noticeable difference in seedling performance between these three mediums. Like any garden mama, I want all my little green things to grow big & strong!
Okay, Sherrill. I'll report again next week, when I should start seeing some signs of seedlings emerging! I'm totally exciting! Anticipatory! Expectant, even!
Let's end with a good quote about gardening... and weather:
Weather
means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening
to a
shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.
~Marcelene Cox
Might as well make friends with the rain, right? 'Cause you know as well as I do that it's going to be our constant companion for the next 4 months... at least!!!
Ciao!
