Any tips growing with Jiffy Pots

I apologize if someone already created a thread for this but I can not find one.  I would say that I am an average gardener.  Been doing it for as long as I can remember.  This year, I wanted to master the art of growing from seed.  There are a few things that I have grown from seed before, but I consider these easy seeds, you know. . . cucumbers, squash, beans, peas.  These things sprout if someone sneezes on them!  lol.  I have trouble doing the other things that you are supposed to start indoors and transplant.  I have no issues with the hardening process, although it Was a grand lesson in patience.  My problem is the plants never seem to grow outside of the little Jiffy pellet netting. 

My process:  After being hardened, I prep my area, at this point after many years of amending, my garden soil is loamy.  I gently loosen the bottom of the jiffy pot so it is opened up and allows the roots to grow freely.  I plant the item like I would a regular garden plant from the nursery and lo...3 weeks later they still look the same size. 

This year I experimented a bit on seed starting 1.  Jiffy pellet indoors, grew until they were mini plants and planted and no further growth.
2.  Put the seeds in the Jiffy pellets then planted the pellet from day one outside....hey don't judge I didn't have to deal with hardening.  They grew into mini plants at a slightly slower rate than the indoor Jiffy group.  It seems their growth is also stunted.

3.  Started Jiffy pellets but once the plants were big enough just removed the netting and planted the pot. They are growing just fine. 

I know this sounds like common sense and just remove the netting and I will in the future.  But I have a group of friends that just pop the whole darn thing in the ground with no problem, most don't even bother to open the bottom for the roots.  Anyone else have this situation or am I just pampering the crud out of my plants?

Hi!

I have had bad luck with Jiffy pots, and I have had good luck too.  I use the 3 or 4” peat post instead.  Or the 72 starter cells.  With the clear cover.  

I only use the peat pots for stuff that transplants hard:  melons, squashes, cukes.  Everything else is in the starter cells!

krsbing wrote:I have a group of friends that just pop the whole darn thing in the ground with no problem, most don't even bother to open the bottom for the roots.  Anyone else have this situation or am I just pampering the crud out of my plants?

That's me. I love my Jiffy Pellets and I hate normal transplanting. I even re-use my Jiffy Pellets when they survive their first season.

Hi KRSBing.

I use them. But like your #3, I remove the netting & pop them in the ground once they start growing.

Keep in mind that they really don't have any nutrients in them. It's just peat moss. So I want to get them in the ground as quickly as possible.

I do like the idea of putting them outside from day one. That should speed up the hardening process, lol!

Another reason to get them planted out ASAP is that the roots can spread in such close quarters, making it difficult to separate the plants if they stay in the pellets too long.

It seems we all have our ways and methods with the Jiffy's and what works best for us.  At least I know I am not alone in removing the netting.

The last time I used them I took the netting off as soon as the pellet was fully hydrated and expanded.  They are pretty sturdy things and don't dissolve with bottom watering.  I also have found that I need to water with a dilute liquid fertilizer from as soon as the plants sprout.  I prefer soil blocks, but for a couple plants a Jiffy pellet works.

Started peas in Jiffy Pellets, yesterday. This is what I found this morning.


I took the lid off and put lights on it, but could this be dangerous? Should I throw it out, take it back to the store, fumigate the house, sue somebody, call the bomb squad, call Ghost Busters, MIB? HELP!

No idea, probably harmless, however with the spread of things like Deathcap mushrooms in the Bay Area and our industrial scale processes spreading things like Listeria across an entire region's harvest , Ive gotten very cautious whenever out of the ordinary things crop up.

Thanks, No-Such. I Googled it and it seems to be more common than I thought, and appears harmless, but I am removing the covers from all of my mini-greenhouses.

I wonder if you will have a problem with damping off in those pellets? I guard against that by dusting the top of the growth medium with cinnamon. You can also water or mist with camomile tea. Both of these have anti-fungal properties.

Turan wrote:I wonder if you will have a problem with damping off in those pellets? I guard against that by dusting the top of the growth medium with cinnamon. You can also water or mist with camomile tea. Both of these have anti-fungal properties.

Awesome, Turan! I'll do that right now.

I've used them in the past, CN. I've got my starts in an east-facing window & have had SOME issues with that from time to time. I always took the cover off & removed those affected.

At this point I have a few left & am moving to starting in small dixie cups w/ MM that will be easy to up-pot.

countrynaturals wrote: . . . I took the lid off and put lights on it, but could this be dangerous? Should I throw it out, take it back to the store, fumigate the house, sue somebody, call the bomb squad, call Ghost Busters, MIB? HELP!

I planted up 8 X 5 gallon tubs & 6 X 12 inch hanging baskets  using commercial  plants grown in 1.5 X 1.5 X 1.5 inch netted, random weave fires bags to make blocks of coir & peat .  That was three years ago , I've  had some lovely flowers .  This year I decided it was time to renew the growth medium & replant up with some old & some new plants.
On taking the contents apart I was surprised to find  all the net/ bags still there . 

I didn't really want almost 100 spent bags/ nets  of plastic fibres in my compost so I spent a while extracting each bag before the spent compost was added to the veg beds . 
 

 Some viola's I purchased are also in the bags , yesterday when I planted up the remainder of the tubs I used a pair of scissors & took the nets off before planting them .


 I gave up on real jiffy pots a long time ago  for unless you plant the whole pot deeper than things should be or cut the top down .
The fibres showing above the ground or very close to the surface of the soil in hot weather will make fantastic wicks to dry out the area around the plant roots .



 What is working exceedingly well are my bottomless seed growing tubes ( 3 inch lengths of 1 & 3/4 inch waste water pipe ) with a disc of hard sponge ( 1/2 " thick personal gym  or camping mat  ) in the bottom . To get the plant out you push them out from the bottom as a plug full of roots and slip them in a 2 " dia hole .




 If you're amused that I purchased the viola's it's because they were in flower . I was able to see what colour went where in the planting plans .growing them myself from seed could have required a dozen or more trays to get the colours I was after .

plantoid wrote: . . .  I gave up on real jiffy pots a long time ago  for unless you plant the whole pot deeper than things should be or cut the top down .
The fibres showing above the ground or very close to the surface of the soil in hot weather will make fantastic wicks to dry out the area around the plant roots . . .

I found the same with peat moss pots. There are a few things I have to purchase from the nursery and when they come in peat pots, they are a bear to keep moist. I finally figured out that it's best to peel and cut the peat off for planting. Now, if they would quite using a peat-heavy planting mixture . . .

This has been a super weird seed starting year, and I have been forced to use 3” peat pots more than usual...my observations:

I like them, but they dry out until you plant them; so water often.  When you plant the seedling, tear off the top 1/3 of the pot and plant the base of the plant.  Compost the rest, or just lay it around on the bed to mulch.  

I have a fungus/moss??? Thing going on with lack of germination in my basement...gonna pitch the whole 72 cell (brand new with sterile starter) and go to 8-strips of peat cells.  We will see...will be start #4 on peppers, and #3 for some tomatoes

Scorpio Rising wrote:This has been a super weird seed starting year, and I have been forced to use 3” peat pots more than usual...my observations:

I like them, but they dry out until you plant them; so water often.  When you plant the seedling, tear off the top 1/3 of the pot and plant the base of the plant.  Compost the rest, or just lay it around on the bed to mulch.  

I have a fungus/moss??? Thing going on with lack of germination in my basement...gonna pitch the whole 72 cell (brand new with sterile starter) and go to 8-strips of peat cells.  We will see...will be start #4 on peppers, and #3 for some tomatoes

I'm having a bad year for seeds, too. I've had poor germination, fungus, something eating my outdoor seedlings, seedlings just dying for no apparant reason, etc. Even the ones that don't die are growing very slowly. I only have one skinny asparagus spear (off topic, but still related ). I can't blame Jiffy Pellets for any of it but the fungus, however. I still prefer them to any other seed-starting method.