I would probably use some Fertilome Potting Mix and add some Azomite mineral supplement to it. Of course I would use a regular fertilizing program also.

Its up to you. I like Hyponex potting soil sold in the green bag. It costs 8 and change for 2 cuft of potting soil. I have used it with some house plants and it works great. At the price it is well worth it. The quality is there. I really recommend using bagged potting soil as it is ph balanced and convenient. I have found for my outside container garden my fast growing annuals like peppers will grow in the hot summer very well in nothing more then a mix of peatmoss and composted manure and lime. I tested this mix with some jalapenos and they where very healthy and produced very much. This mix is a fraction of the price maybe costing 2 bucks a cuft. A cuft can fill 5 or so #2 containers which is what I finish my peppers in. So thats 40 cents a plant. If you do want to try saving money and make a mix, I would try it with only a few plants and the rest of them use bagged potting mix. See how your mix works, if it is good results then you know that mix works. I know the mix of 90% peat and 10% manure would not be the best for a house plant in low light conditions, but I see how well it worked in bright light hot conditions of the summer. I even se some gardners use 100% peat to grow tomatoeswith great results. The manure acts as a buffer and ensures a better grow.

That soilless potting mix is quite expensive and I see no difference between plants grown in that then the plants growing in my compost. I have done as you are planning with tree seedlings many times except growing thme in the compost I make and they do much better, long term, when I do because I tend to make sure they get adequate water in the pots then if planted out in the yard somewhere.

I am sold on Al's Gritty Mix. Miracle Grow leads to root rot and plant decline. It is ok for short while like some crops you will harvest, but not for long term. The peat moss retains too much water. I used to use it, because I wanted thing to be simpler, but there is no bagged mix, that is up to par. I used to use super soil, but it got sold to Scotts and the formula was changed. Those bagged mixes want to sell cheap ingredients at high prices. Scotts makes both of those brands now.

Regardless of what you decide to plant them in, I'll add an endorsement for growing tree seedlings in pots for a year or two before planting. It gets so hot and dry here in the Midwest in the summer that they struggle if planted directly. We've had much better luck planting all trees in the fall. Not only is the weather cooler, but they get a chance to produce some roots in the pot. We keep them in semi-shade in a place where they're easy to water and feed. We've even done this with full size bare root fruit trees shipped in the spring. They need a big pot but it's worth the effort.

I'd skip the MG soil and go with one of 3 Fafard heavy mixes, or better yet - make your own.

Even the 530 trays only hold about a pint of soil, so if you don't want root constriction to hold them back, you'll probably need to bump your plants to a larger container in mid-summer - if you get the soil right. The medium and your nutrient supplementation will largely determine how close your plants can come to reaching their genetic potential, as long as you have a good handle on watering (the right soil makes that point almost moot - as long as you DO water) and keeping temps within bounds.

Read more about the soils at the link below, but it would be a good idea to avoid soils based primarily on fine particulates, like peat/compost/coir/sand/topsoil ......, and concentrate on a soil based on something chunkier - pine bark/crushed granite/Turface/Haydite/pumice/calcined DE/quartzite. Remember - a healthy root system is prerequisite to a healthy plant, and the more water a soil holds (directly related to particle size) the more difficult it is to maintain roots in good health.

Here is a link that might be useful: More info if you click me .....

"Posted by kimmsr 4a/5b-MI (My Page) on Mon, Jan 7, 13 at 6:43

That soilless potting mix is quite expensive and I see no difference between plants grown in that then the plants growing in my compost."

Soilless is a form of drain to waste hydrdoponics. The soilless mix provides more air porosity thus higher yields. I use soil. I take a little less harvest for the natural ph buffer found in the COMPOSTED FOREST material which is what 55% of potting mix is composed of, NOT peat. So, like kimmsr, I do use potting soil for my containers, but I understand soilless will provide a larger harvest. I can really say I will use potting mix forever!

This post was edited by TheMasterGardener1 on Tue, Jan 8, 13 at 16:45

I don't think anyone is talking hydroponics, we're talking potting mixes, aren't we? Some of which have no mineral-based soil in them, thus referred to as soilless?

Well, soilless mixs are just a hydroponic medium. A soil mix may have composts and soils that in turn will have a lower air porosity, but will have effective nutrient availability to the composts buffer. Even a hydroponic grow medium like, for example, 75% peat and 25% perlite with addded lime. Well, the lime is the ph buffer. If you add compost to that mix you will increase the buffer and decrease the air porosity.

And what does this have what to do with growing filbert seedlings in Miracle-Gro?

Soilless means no compost type of stuff in there. It is better for pots for some reason to be sterile. Seedling can be inhibited from sprouting due to mold. But, over all if I put garden soil in a pot and plant a plant, they all did poorly and began to decline and had to be removed from the pot or else they would die. But, if I use al's gritty, it does well, and I also add perlite to the mix because drainage is key. I just make sure the perlite is the small size as the rest of the particles in the mix. If all the particles are mostly the same size you will get drainage. My soil has sand and sand is small therefore, it fills in the spaces and creates compaction. Compaction creates poor drainage. Poor drainage causes root rot.

Yup, well said, tropical_thought. It is good to talk about this to help growers find out what is right for them.

I have used garden soil right in a container. Here is two cayenne in topsoil from the ground!

{{gwi:26695}}

Here is another cayenne in a basic potting mix.

{{gwi:46010}}

Here is a cherry pepper that gave me unexplainable amounts of peppers. It is all about water and fertilizing skills after you find the right potting mix!

Wilting and ready for a drink!
{{gwi:50255}}

TropThought - one of the primary concerns with using soils made with small particulates is water retention. Fine sand's flow-through rate is adequate, but its water retention is excessive - especially in shallow containers. The same is true of compost/peat/coir/garden soil/topsoil/sand mixes - they just hold too much water to give plants their best chance at growing to their potential.

MasterGardener shows a picture of a pepper now & then, and changes his stories as often as I change my socks. When he's able to eliminate some of the cognitive dissonance from his offerings, I'll take him seriously - until then .....

Perched water is the real issue/culprit. When a soil's particle size reaches about .1 inch, the PWT disappears entirely; so concentrating most of your soils particles in a size range of .1 inch and larger will leave you with little in the way of a saturated lower layer of soil to depress root function, hamper root health, or cause root rot issues.

Uniformity in particle size can be used to the grower's considerable advantage in structuring his soils, but that uniformity can't make up for the excessive water retention that accompanies particulates that are simply too small.

A quart jar full of marbles has some wonderfully large pores between the marbles, but you can probably pour close to an additional pint of BBs and then a pint of builder's sand into the same quart jar, destroying the aeration because the particles are inconsistent in size AND too small. You'd still have a good flow-through rate with the BBs and sand added to the marbles, but aeration would be poor and the ht of the PWT much too high for good results.

Al

Anyone else like Miracle gro potting mix? I want to say I found Hyponex in the new green bag sol at 2 cuft for 8 bucks and change is a great blend. Just from one gardener to another. :)

My sig. other buy bags and bags of potting soil, Miracle Grow included and all seem to work well enough.

I get the discarded soil balls fall and spring and from years of them, one part of my potato patch is now actually quite fluffy.

I wish I had enough balls to take some down to my other garden which has a gumbo base.

I've used Miracle Gro, in the form of torn bags from the dumpster, and liked it quite a bit for tomatoes. Can't beat the price. :-]

Two years ago I bought some heavy bagged soil from our grocer's spring garden section, for potted annuals. The plants did poorly for weeks and I replanted the existing annuals in Miracle Gro potting soil, with great results. I've never tried Filbert seed.

I think it all gets down to what works for each person. You can't argue opinions, you can only consider them. I have used Bayer Advanced on my roses for years and its really been a huge help for me in the area of preventing virus and fungus. I make my own fertilizer. Each to its own. Waste of time to argue, it's interesting to know what other people use isn't it? I will say that professional florists use something called Crowning Glory to keep their flowers looking good for weeks after selling them. I tried Miracle Gro Water control or whatever it's called. I did not like it. I do like Miracle Gro potting mix, but we have a nursery and have to produce plants by the thousands in unnatural conditions. Plants don't normally live in pots for years. Certainly not Viburnums and Rhododendrons. You have to do something to keep them going or they die. Everybody argues but what we need are solutions, and it would be nice if we could stay away from taking stuff out of the oceans to fix the soil. That makes no sense to me. The ocean has given enough. Plus it's completely polluted, plastics have been found in the Arctic. Not for me. We stick to what works. I would actually pray about it, and you will know what to do. Sometimes asking helps you know what you don't want to do.

Damned Eskimos have been buying bottled water at walmart again, eh? The Tundra is an interesting grow medium. It wont matter to OP though as this thread is from 2013.

I am just curious what part of a commercial potting mix comes out of the ocean.

Of course you can argue opinions - especially those that are advanced without the provider burdening him/herself with the inconvenience of thought. The act of expressing an opinion is a very simple exercise of the human will, which, lamentably, has tendency to encourage us to make a decisions without information.

Scenario:

Starchild provides us with an opinion.

Moonbeam offers a long list of reasons why Starchild's opinion cannot be supported.

Starchild supports the proffered opinion with whatever facts can be gathered to refute Moonbeam's list, while the rest of the galaxy gets to decide who makes the most sense.

It's also not a waste of time to argue these points because disagreements hashed out on a keyboard very often provide excellent learning opportunities.

Al