Colin Dodge

I'm mostly using this for larger rooted cuttings with pretty good root structure. Do you think top dressing with worm castings would be a good idea?

Looking for inexpensive potting soil to grow woody perennials that will eventually be planted outdoors. I've been doing a lot of research and it seems like a lot of nurseries use mulch in their mixes. A mulch producer in my area sells a mix of %80 triple shredded aged (two years) hardwood mulch and %20 leaf compost. This seems pretty similar to some recipes I've seen. Does anyone have any experience with this? Am I headed down the wrong path? I'll post some photos so you can see what I'm working with.

I'm not sure usually when I overwinter woody perennials in pots I put them on the ground and wrap them in thick opaque white plastic. The do pretty well like that but I do think they get some heat from the ground.

greg mosser wrote:i’d let them overwinter in the bed and pot them up in the early spring while they’re still dormant. i actually forgot about a nursery bed of pawpaw seedlings and ended up digging them during their second dormancy. despite just getting to the size where digging them out was starting to be a chore, the vast majority did quite well.

this is what I would prefer to do my only concern is that I live in Michigan and I'm worried they air space under the bed will make the roots much colder than natural paw paw roots would be if they were planted in the ground. Do you think this is a concern?

Hey all, I started a little experiment last year germinating some paw paw trees from wild seeds I collected. I learned alot about paw paw life cycle. I planted them in very deep pots to accommodate their large tap roots but unfortunately it was in vain their massive taproots became severely root bound in just a few month and their overall root structure was awful. This year I'm going to try again but I'm going to use this technique.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BVOKTGv-8PQ  my question is when should I remove the paw paws from the bed. I'm going to start them spring of 2022. I'd like to eventually give them to neighbors to plant as landscape plants. Should I overwinter them in the air pruning bed and pot them up before they break dormancy. Or should I pot them up in the fall and overwinter them in pots?

I started them mid March and put them out mid may they are in a pretty sunny spot. They vegged out like crazy and flowered and set fruit right on time they have just seemed to be frozen in time for two months. It has been very rainy could that be a cause?

These are supposed to go seed to fruit in 65 days it's been over 130 days they  seem to have been stuck just like this for a long time. Also some of the older fruits have started falling off the vine unripe

Hey guys I'm in Michigan. I started these sungold tomato's from seed in mid March I have huge great looking plants. They flowered and set fruit normally but the fruit has been sitting full size on the vine for 6 weeks now totally green. Does anyone know what's going on? It's been abnormally hot for michigan here (75-95) but I know tomato's are usually grown in places that are much hotter than that.

I'm trying to find a good potting soil to pot up some rooted perennial cuttings to plant next spring. I've done alot of research and so far it seems like Al's 5-1-1 recipe seems like a popular choice. I have been reading about this person's experience with it https://www.google.com/amp/s/threefold.farm/blog/making-your-own-potting-mix%3fformat=amp . It seems after a few years they moved to a mix of 50-50 pine bark and compost. I like this mix because bulk pine bark and compost are really easy and cheap for me to get. What do you folks think is this simple recipe too good to be true?

I was thinking about clipping it down to the root and then seeing if chickens will tear up new shoots as they sprout does that sound like a good plan?