Diane,

I'm glad you asked. I spent a couple of days thinking why would I even want those? Are they really necessary? But then, when I went to the basement in search of additional cell packs, which I seem to be running short on this year, the answer came to me. Plus, I really hate the extra step of scrubbing and santitizing cell packs. Maybe this will provide an answer to both dislikes for me. I believe Carol talked about them on the "maximum utilization of plug flats" thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Maximum utilization of plug flats

I intended on ordering the soil blockers this yr, but was given plug trays and used those instead. After sanitizing all the trays & containers the plugs will be platned into I declared next yr will be soil blocks! Taking the plugs out of plug trays is a PAIN!!!! The only down side I see is I paid my sisters kids to fill several hundred 4 inch pots with dirt. Not sure if I would be able to get a 5&8 yr old to work the soil blocker.

With the plugs _ they would crumble to pieces if I tried to remove them from the tray if they were not moist. I could see keeping the blocks watered well to be a challenge. I would also be scared of the water hitting them to hard or too much in 1 spot & the blocks failing apart.

Diane, Your boys will probably take over this task for you. LOL The first year that I bought mine, I had difficulty with them, but soon learned that I didn't have the seed starting mix wet enough. I dump the dry mix into a plastic dishpan and pour hot water into it.

I think the mix is easier to dampen with hot water, it feels better on my hands, and it warms the soil for the seed I am going to drop in there as soon as I get a tray full of blocks made.

I work in a place in the pan where the soil is not too deep and I push the block maker down as far is I can. Usually I am touching the bottom of the pan. I rake a little more soil down with the block maker and keep pressing down until the block is firm --- really firm. I turn it over and look and make sure that all are filled and firmed up. Then I set the block maker in a tray, and push the plunger slowly until the blocks drop out. I put the larger blocks in a daisy tray then put that in a solid tray. Since the blocks are wet, you will not have to water for several days. If you have them in a daisy tray, you can bottom water by just setting the daisy tray into a solid tray. I don't always bottom water tho, but I am careful when I top water.

The blocks will firm up as they dry and then they hold together pretty well. Don't expect them to be like the mesh covered things, but they should be firm enough to handle and you don't have to worry about the roots trying to work their way through anything like you do with the mesh.

I have used jiffy mix and Pro-Mix and they both work fine. When I tried the first year, I didn't have either of those and I became a little frustrated trying to learn. I think most seed starting mixes would work, but not potting soils like MG that have large pieces. Of course I start out with very small blocks so starting mix is all I need at that point. Even planting in the little 20 block maker, I can plant as few of one kind of seeds as I want. I write the name on a popsicle stick, then just take the stick and pull over a row of blocks and leave the stick beside them until I am ready to move them up. I normally slide the row onto a small piece of foil because that makes it easy to take out a row if they germinate much faster than the next one. I am talking about the little 3/4 inch blocks and not what you bought. Seed trays don't have flat bottoms, so it helps.

Before I begin to plant larger seeds into larger blocks this year, I am going to cut some concrete siding boards into various sizes, but none longer than the width of a seedling tray. I will unmold onto the board, but keep it inside the tray. I can put 8 melons on one, 12 okra plants, 4 of whatever, etc and be able to get them out of the germination tray easily and moved to a light shelf even if germination is days apart on different seeds. The same thing I do with foil for the tiny ones. Since they will be covered until germination occurs the blocks still won't be totally dry. Disclaimer -- I have not done this before, so it is an experiment with the concrete board.

I plant small seeds in the little blocks and I can plant a huge number into one tray. If they don't germinate then I have wasted little space or materials. It's a lot like some of you germinating in paper towels and baggies, but I don't have to touch the seed or the plant because I can pick it up in the block and move it to the next larger size.

Diane, if this doesn't make sense, just ask questions. It would be much easier to show you than tell you, but crossing Missouri to get to you is not an option right now. LOL

For years I've toyed with the idea of getting a soil block maker, but I have worried that when seedlings are hardening off outdoors, often in the windy March weather, the soil blocks will dry out too quickly.

If I was home all the time and could watch them, that wouldn't worry me as much. Since I am at the mercy of the fire pager, though, there are times in late winter and early spring when I leave to go to a fire and am gone for many hours. I'd hate to lose seedlings on a day like that.

Now that I have the greenhouse, that might not be such a worry since it will provide better shelter from the wind. I still do worry, like JCatblum, about how they hold up to watering. I am not a slow, careful waterer. I am a hurry-up-and-get-this-done-now waterer.

Dawn, by the time mine go outside into the open air they are usually in a pot because my largest block maker is the two inch one. I don't think wind would be a problem, but with the kind of Spring rain we normally get, I would not want them outside all day until they were in pots. I do put them out in the blocks while I am still hardening off, but I am at home in those cases and can get them in before the monsoons hit. It might work, but I don't do it that way.

If mine were in a greenhouse, I would probably put the amount of water that I wanted them to have in the bottom of a solid seedling tray and set the daisy tray in it. They could wick it up slowly and I wouldn't think the block would dry out enough to be a problem.

It is hard to advise anyone on this because everyone's planting practices are different and I don't want to be responsible for anyone losing seedlings. I can only say that it works well for me, and I plant all of my tomatoes and peppers this way. I have lots of choices though because I have hundreds of pots in addition to my blockers, but I haven't always had.

This is not the only thing I use, but it is one of the things I use every year. I never have damping off like I hear so many others say they have and some years I grow several hundred seedlings.

Dawn, I think you will be surprised at how early in the day you will need to open the door and window on you greenhouse. Heat will be an issue really early in the season in your climate, I believe.

The heat inside the greenhouse doesn't shock me because I've been in greenhouses before and know how quickly they heat up. Also, our sun porch gets monstrously hot, even on relatively cold winter afternoons and it has a solid roof, so the sunlight is only coming in through the south and west-facing windows. I love that though because I can open the French door between the sunporch and living room/breakfast room area on a cold afternoon and warm up the indoors with sun-warmed air from the sunporch.

When I was a child, our next door neighbors had a greenhouse and it was fairly small--about 8' x 12' and they had a lot of trouble with it getting too hot, but I loved it in there because it always felt like summertime in that greenhouse. My uncle has one too, and he has it where it is shaded by deciduous trees after they leaf out. I probably didn't understand why that was important when he put it there, but I understand it now.

Heat is already an issue in the greenhouse, especially if you are Tim and you're working inside of it. He got so warm yesterday he had to break out a cold beer for relief. Yesterday, in cloudy weather with the doors and vents closed, it was 20 degrees warmer inside the greenhouse than it was outdoors. I can just imagine how warm it would have been if the sun had been out at that time.

The heat didn't bother me at all, but then I was outside working in the Peter Rabbit Garden where it was 20 degrees cooler than the temps inside the greenhouse.

Dawn, tell Tim I'm glad he found relief. LOL

I am sure that you will not be surprised about the heat build up. I was surprised with my hoophouse down there because it didn't have to be very warm at all for the vent to start opening. I didn't notice mine getting dry quickly but I mostly planted in the ground and had plants in there from fall through spring only. It is a lovely place to be in winter when it is cold and windy outside, and you feel all nice and toasty. I rarely had to water, and had no pest issues because of the time of year. It is a pleasant garden experience. I'm saving my pennies!

I don't really have a good place for a hoophouse, but when we replace one of our old worn-out metal buildings with a better structure, it will be the perfect place for a lean-to type greenhouse on the south side. The cedars have been cut and as long as a neighbor doesn't plant an evergreen, it will remain a great place. It is closer to my neighbor's garden than it is to mine so I don't think I have any problems there.

So Peter Rabbit is alive and well again, huh? So cute!

Oh, Carol, thank you for typing all of that out! I cannot wait to get down in the basement and play with it. It came today so I might not have the restraint to wait much longer.

I'm wishing I'd ordered the tiny one, too, now... (I have a bad case of the gimmees this week!)

Diane

Diane,

Keep us posted as a newbie blocker. I presented the case to Seedpapa in terms of "no more cell packs soaking in bleach in the kitchen sink." It made it to the list for next year. Yea!

Did you watch the video on the Johnny's website telling how to use it?

Seedmama

Carol, Peter Rabbit lives. It didn't get a lot of attention last year when I got so busy with fires, so I've been cleaning out the beds and putting fresh mulch into the pathways, etc. and it is cleaning up nicely. I do think that all the herbs in it died last summer because, you know, after a certain point I wasn't watering anything. The Peter Rabbit birdbath, which has a rabbit as part of its base, is the cat's favorite place to sit and watch me work while I am in Peter's garden. Only the birds and I know that the birdbath is meant for them. The cats just think it is a cat observation platform.

I still have issues with the Peter Rabbit garden because it is right up against the south property line, with our neighbor's cow pasture adjacent and the snakes come out of that pasture and into the Peter Rabbit garden all day long.

You know how I feel about snakes.

My greenhouse was toasty warm today, and that's a good thing, but outside in the wind, the wind chill was in the 30s when I was outside late this afternoon.

Y'all are making me want a soil blocker too. As if I need one more piece of gardening equipment!

Dawn

Dawn, I don't know anyone who grows better transplants than you do, so I don't think you need to change a thing. With the new greenhouse, you are likely to get really carried away.

We were in Bartlesville today and we were on a schedule so I made a quick run into Atwoods to check out the seed potatoes while Al went up the street to buy gasoline. I told him where I would meet him, but I forgot to put on my coat. I waited out in that cold wind with just a sweatshirt and it was way too cold.

I normally buy potatoes at Atwoods in Vinita and I always find what I want there. I did buy a few Yukon Gold and then just looked for the bag that looked best and bought a few red ones from that one. I don't even know the name. I just plant a small area anyway, but I love the taste of the fresh potatoes, especially Yukon Gold. I am seeing them more and more in the supermarket, so others must feel the same way about them. Yumm, I can almost taste the potato salad. LOL

I bought 5# each of Yukon Gold and Pontiac a few days ago. I would like to have more but I am afraid I may run short of space and time. Prices around here are running 45 to 69 cents a pound.

I had not grown Yukon Gold before last year, we liked the flavor.

Larry

Larry, I love the Yukon Gold and I love, love, love potato salad made with them. I think I paid 58 cents for mine but they were on mark-down that day.

I have the same problem that you do, just not enough space. I was looking on Google Earth at our property and I wondered how I ever manage to grow anything because I could barely see my garden for the trees. If it doesn't have shade or roots it has a lateral line running through it, so I just don't have a lot of suitable spots other than where I now garden. Two neighbors lost trees in ice storms and that cleared some of my garden, but then my tree got taller. LOL

I usually plant a lot of containers just so I can put them in a place outside the main garden where they can find more sun.

I would love it if I had another garden area for potatoes so I didn't have to have them in the main garden, but I don't. My husband would appreciate it if I limited my gardening to the garden.

Carol,

Thanks for the compliment. Transplants are easy because we can completely control their environment. If only we could do that with our gardens!

I am trying really hard not to plant more seeds than I can ultimately transplant into the ground, or give away at the Spring Fling. I probably will get carried away with the seed starting. Perhaps I already have.

The sidewalls of the greenhouse face south and north, and the endwalls with the doors and vents face east and west. I decided to put raised beds along the the north wall, so today we bought the lumber and hardware and built two raised beds that are each 11.5' long by 4' wide by 10" tall. That will give me room to grow stuff in those beds, high-tunnel style, while saving the space along the south wall for greenhouse benches/shelves where I can put flats of plants to grow on and to harden off. Tomorrow I need to figure out how many flats I can fit into that area, so I don't end up trying to put too many flats into the greenhouse.

The chore for tomorrow will be to work on filling the new raised beds with growing medium. I worked on it some today, sort of lasagna style. I started with a layer of compost from my pile of spoiled hay bales, and then put in a layer of 'used' soil-less mix recycled from some of last year's big tomato pots, and then added a layer of pine bark fines, followed by a thin layer of Espoma Plant Tone. I still have a long way to go. I hope to get the shade cloth up and start planting into those beds by next week....probably cool-season stuff like spinach, lettuce and other greens, green onions, carrots, etc.

My favorite potatoes are Norland Red, Kennebec and Yukon Gold. We also really like All-Blue, Adirondack Blue and a purple one that I think is Peruvian Purple. I'd like to grow more (last year I didn't weigh the potatoes, but the harvest was easily over 100 lbs. and Tim says he thinks it was about 150 lbs.) but I hate digging them in the heat. If they would dig themselves, I'd plant twice as many as I do.

No matter how much space you have, it is never enough. My problem is not that I don't have space, but just that it is not suitable gardening space. Everything slopes so much, is heavily forested so too shady, or holds water too much in the years when it rains a lot, or would be impossible to fence off from the deer.

Today I saw a tree leafing out near Thackerville. Not budding, not flowering, not sending out new shoots, but leafing out! It freaked me out. I am not ready for the trees to rush headlong into spring. I cannot imagine winter is finished with us yet, and the plum trees are just itching to bloom.

When I was working in the greenhouse today with both doors open, it was roughly 30 degrees warmer in there than outside, and it felt so good. It will be a bit cooler when I get the shadecloth up.

If I had a soil blocker, I likely would have made larger soil blocks all of last week for potting up tiny tomato transplants. I've potted up about 300 so far, and have another hundred or two to go. The seed-starting shelves are filling up with the flats of potted-up tomatoes, and I was looking at my storage shelf out in the garage, which is full of gardening supplies and such, and was trying to guesstimate how many flats of seedlings I could start on that shelf....if I moved the supplies someplace else and added lights to it.

I probably won't do that, but then again I might. The greenhouse stayed above freezing last night, and I am watching the weather carefully. I hope to move the tomato plants out to the greenhouse to stay in a couple of weeks. If I am able to do that, I'll have plenty of space inside on the light shelf to start oodles and oodles of other plants.

Dawn

Oh Dawn, I think the GH is going to be so much fun for you. I made tiny soil blocks today and started broccoli, cabbage, oriental cabbages and things like that. Since I just used a 20 block maker, all of it fits in one tray. I haven't started any warm season plants yet, but will fairly soon, I think. I have had onions and leeks under lights but just set up the germination area today.

I decided to plant lettuce and such in pots which are roughly gallon size. They don't get nearly as much soil splash that way, and I will grow one kind per pot. I have a bad habit of starting too much at one time, so maybe I will do better if I limit my self to 2-3 pots each time I plant.

It sounds like I need to get my beds ready for the onions in the next few days. Part of them are going into a raised bed, but I will also need to put some in the ground because as usual, I bought too many. We have a forecast this week for a 21 or 22 degree night so I will be glad to see that one pass. I think there will be more.

The Atwoods I went to did have Kennebec but I didn't get them this time. The last time I grew potatoes, I grew Kennebec and Yukon Gold and they were both good. I had hoped to find a blue, just to play with, but they didn't have any. That doesn't mean that I won't buy more if I should see something I like.

I was telling Jay that one year when my garden was in bad shape, after my broken foot year, I planted peppers but didn't have my garden ready when it was time. I put those peppers into gallon size pots and let them grow until the end of June. My DIL came here on vacation and helped me finish getting the garden ready and we put those plants in the garden at that time and they did fine. We had to dig some big holes to slide them into, but they didn't even seem to notice the change and produced fine. I am thinking if I do that again, then I will have plenty of time to harvest all of the Spring crops and be ready to drop some large plants into the ground. I will have to go ahead and plant the monster size pepper plants into the ground, but my bells and jalapenos don't usually get over about 3 feet tall. Some of the others get huge and I wouldn't try that with them. In fact, I still have so many of last years in the freezer, I doubt I will use them all before new ones come in. You would think that would keep me from planting so many, but you know how I am with peppers.

I also still have frozen chopped onions from last year, but this year I am hoping to get lots of large onions that I can store for use in the winter. I will probably use the frozen ones that I have now for making pepper jelly and put fresh ones in the freezer.

And Dawn, I do think that I am out of control, but I am not planting 400-500 tomato plants. LOL

Quickie drive-by question that just hit me:

How do you label these soil blocks? I'm not worried about the ones for me but I'm thinking of the ones I start for others. Labels laid across the top wouldn't work when transporting them. Does shoving labels (I'm most fond of mini-blinds) down into the blocks break them apart?

I could always plant others' starts in pots, no problem. I just wondered how the labeling thing works.

Back to my school marm duties before one of the kids catches me goofing off!

Diane

I only mentioned Johnny's because that is where mine came from probably 16 years ago and they still have them. I received a Lee Valley catalog yesterday and they also have them. I trust the products from both companies.

Just an FYI. I did some searching and found the person above apparently owns the business at the sites above.

Jay, It was an ad, but I watched his video and it was good. LOL

I trust anything sold by Lee Valley Tool, and they always seem to have 'something else' I want, so I consider that a good option. I think Johnny's have had theirs marked down a little recently, but I don't think the price has changed much for many years. I don't remember exactly when I bought mine, but since I bought them long before I moved here, and I have been here 11 years, I have had them quite a long time.

You know you want something from Lee Valley. LOL

Carol, I am having a lot of fun with the greenhouse. Last night I didn't even want to come in at dark, but I did. Then I went out several times during the night to see how quickly or how slowly the temps inside the greenhouse drop after the sun sets.

We have a night in the mid to upper 20s this week, or maybe two, but nothing so cold that I have to worry about anything in the ground freezing. I worry a lot less than I used to now that I've got frost-blanket weight floating row covers.

Last year both the Lowe's and Home Depot had blue potatoes, but not until closer to mid- or late-February. They don't have any seed potatoes in either of those two stores down here yet, but they've got a lot of bulbs in, bagged onion sets, garlic and shallots, and bags of strawberry plants, horseradish and rhubarb roots, so the potatoes cannot be far behind.

I remember the year you had to hold plants forever in pots. I have saved every Tidy Cat litter buckle we've ever gotten so that if we ever have a wet, flooding year like 2007 again (I held plants in pots until June or July that year too), I can plant whatever I want in the cat litter buckets. It wouldn't be real attractive, but it would lok better than dead plants in a flooded garden.

We still have tons of peppers in the freezer too, and to my great delight, when I was removing a bag of roasted jalapenos for Super Bowl Sunday, I found a stray bag of dehydrated cherry tomatoes in the pepper area. Woo hoo! I thought all the tomatoes were gone, but now we have a whole bag left. I could scarcely contain my joy.

I love the security of having twice as many tomato plants as I need, and that explains partly why I grow so many. That way, if baseball-sized hail rolls through (or even golfball-sized hail), I have replacements for the shredded plants. It has been about a decade since large hail completely destroyed my veggie garden one May, and every year that passes, I feel like the odds are greater we'll have one of those destructive hail storms hit us. We had hail 11 times last year, which was remarkable since we usually see hail maybe once or twice a year, but none of it was overly big. We had small hail last week, about pea-sized, but it fell very briefly and wasn't big enough to hurt anything.

I never have trouble giving away the extra tomato and pepper plants, as you know, and bring many of them to the annual Spring Fling. I also give them away to friends here, and sometimes Tim comes home from work and asks for a variety recommendation for one of his co-workers, and I'll give him a list of sugested varieties...and send some tomato plants to work with him to give to that person.

The good thing about being out-of-control with tomato seedlings is that it doesn't leave me a lot of available space to get out of control with peppers. lol Increasingly I am growing only jalapenos and habaneros for canning purposes, and sweet bells and Yummy peppers for fresh eating and freezing. I used to grow several dozen pepper varieties every year, but just don't have the space and time for as many without sacrificing space where I'm growing canners.

Diane, I've wondered that myself.

Carol, I saw the soil-block makers in the Lee Valley Tools catalog too.

Jay, I have a personal rule for myself that I don't purchase from anyone who spams our forum with 'messages' that are thinly-veiled attempts to direct us to their commercial website, and by that comment, I DO NOT mean someone like Gary who is a regular participant on our forum. I mean people who do not post here at all except to promote something they sell.

Dawn

Dawn I agree. And usually ignore such posts. This one for some reason I wasn't able to ignore and move on. Maybe it is because of what today is for me. Anyway I didn't appreciate the feeling I received from his post. Yes he has some good info on his site. But anyone who has to tell me he is a guru instead of showing me with his actions and words makes me leery. Then to run vaguely run an honest business down while tooting his own horn makes the decision easier not to do any business with him.

Gary goes out of his way to not promote his business. I've seen representatives of other companies that do the same. I saw a post in 08 on a thread I think Carol may of posted on where he stated within two years we would be seeing his soil in every store. I haven't seen it in any of our greenhouse/nurseries yet. Jay

Carol, have you ever used soil blockers for starting snap/sweet peas indoor? do you think soil blocks create transplant shock to peas plant? -Chandra

Chandra, I haven't used soil blocks for peas but I don't see why you couldn't. Some years I seed peas in the garden and others I just plant in small cups. I just wrote this in another post, but I have never had trouble transplanting peas. I have been able to slide the entire thing out of the cup and into my hand without much disturbance. The only years that I have not planted direct were when it was too wet and I was afraid the seeds would rot. I thought I might plant enough under lights to fill one trellis, then wait a little longer and direct seed the next ones. If we start getting a lot of rain, then I will start them inside also.

The only caution I would give is if you use cups be sure to have the seed about an inch under the soil because as it germinates it may turn and almost heave itself out of the cup if it isn't deep enough. They kind of behave like Mexican Jumping Beans when they start to germinate.

So far, I have started everything in small blocks, but haven't moved things to larger blocks. I had a bag of MG potting soil that I was trying to use up and it is much too course to make blocks so I have been moving the cole crops up to cups. When I move the tomatoes, I will go to the next size block with them.

I'll try some in blocks if you would like for me to and we can see how it works. While I probably won't experiment with my Sugar Snaps peas, I have lots of snow peas and garden peas that I would be willing to try most anything with.

I am going to try some other block experiments this year, so I might as well include peas.

I used the soil blocker for the first time this afternoon. LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! Good gravy, I wish I'd bought one years ago! Now I want the smaller and larger ones to go with it.

Diane

Woo-Hoo Diane, I'm so glad you like it. I don't have one larger than the one you have because by that time mine are usually in containers or in the garden. With my normal Spring rainfall, the soil needs to be contained before it starts spending it's life outside in the monsoons, but I have a lot of containers to pot up into.

I do think you need the small one though. I had some seedling mix already wet the other day and I decided to make the mini blocks. In about 10 minutes, I made 15 sets of blocks and filled a seedling tray. It took me 3 times as long to plant it as it did to make the blocks because the seeds were tiny. Since each block maker has 20 blocks, I prepared 300 blocks in that very short time. Of course, it takes longer to plant when you are trying to get one seed into each block, but you save time as you pot up or save thinning time later or since you just put the plant into the ground at the distance you want it to grow.

I am experimenting with some new things this year, and I will report my success later (if I have any). LOL