Seedling update Oct. 9, 08

[shawnintland]

Originally Posted by jk

They look like they are healthy and growing well. Please let us know how you grow them, such as when you transplant them to their own individual pots and what kind of growing medium you use. Also, do you fertilize? If so, when do you start, and what kind and how much fertilizer do you use? Thank you.

Hi JK,

I start them all in small 'tupperware' boxes on chopped sphagnum (with a small silk-screened window in the lid for ventilation), misted daily and kept in semi-bright but no direct sun. Once they germinate I try to transplant them to 'plug trays' filled with not so finely chopped sphag (105 cells each about 1" diameter) a.s.a.p. (usually within a month of germination)

They stay in those, either; misted daily/sealed in big plastic bags or in an ebb and flow hydro table) until I have time ( 2-5 months) to transplant to 2.5" pots on a combination of coco cubes/sphagnum/perlite and then they go into the mini-shade house where they are grown more-or-less hydroponically. There's about 1/4" of water in there and a capillary mat so they just suck up what they need and there's no risk of them drying out in our hot sun.

I don't fertilize the Neps as I'm always afraid of adverse reactions. Will probably try to Nagalaya Proposal segregate some and do tests to see if it makes a difference.

Victoria - The cups are just as you said, "humidity domes". They are mostly on seedlings that were really small at transplanting time and where the roots don't extend very far down into the media yet.

Marigoldsfall - Yeah, I'm really happy that it has, despite all predictions, hung in there! About the shelves in the shade house - it is too small to hold the shelving units I recently bought...but we are just finishing a larger shade house unit that has 2-3 rows of 4 shelf-high racks! Yahoo! I also just started another 'nursery area' at a separate location on the island, but that'll probably be more for Drosera and hanging baskets of ferns and due to being farther away will take some time to get up and running.