From: Ken Mosher ken at spatulacity.com> on 2005.12.18 at 05:52:27(13611)
Hi Derek,
What I think I hear you saying is that the soil mix is irrelevant if
only the grower will learn what the hell he or she is doing? That seems
like a curious comment, and a wrong one. Are you honestly telling me
that you can grow Astrophytum asterias in pure peat moss? Well, maybe
you could if you wanted to spend an inordinate amount of time
"observing" that one plant.
We have been blessed with 1000 different mixes to choose from for a
reason. Maybe we could happily get by on 10 rather than 1000, but
different plants like different conditions and there's no reason to try
to shoehorn the same conditions into every mix.
If I have a nursery pot that's 7" high and the bottom 5" are wet and the
top 2" are bone dry, that is bad. If I have tubers planted in it that
have not broken the soil yet, how can I observe my plants? And if they
are in active growth, shall I wait for them to wilt to water again? I
don't think that's a good way to grow a healthy plant. It may survive
but I want them to thrive. And how many signals do plants give? Not too
many, depends on the plant. The above mentioned Astro. asterias usually
gives two signals: I am alive; I am dead. If you manage to catch a
condition between the two you can be fairly sure that state 2 is not far
off for it will not easily re-attain health.
Or maybe what I was saying in my original post was that the mix I was
using gives me NO slack and I want to find one that does. Lots, if
possible. I'm a one-guy operation and for better or worse *I* run the
hose. I want to become a good commercial grower and in that quest I seek
good tools to help.
Lucky for us there are a bunch of people on aroid-l that will give of
their expertise.
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