Growing in cocoa

[Oliver Buckle]

Coir is the outside fibrous shell of the coconut that gets discarded before we see the nuts, it allows them to float miles in sea water. The people who use it to make mediums and mulch sometimes refer to it as 'coco' , short for coconut, and I wondered if you might have mistaken that for cocoa as cocoa is so unlikely.

 

[Organicfreak]

Oh my apologies, yes I meant coco

 

[Chuck]

Oh my apologies, yes I meant coco

I will try to answer your original question. Coir is not a good long term growing medium. About one growing season and it loses its ability to retain moisture and nutrients and one must water much more often and nutrients leach away easily. Coir naturally has sufficient quantities of P and K but only trace amounts of N. It also has many trace minerals, usually in sufficient amounts for a growing season. All of these natural nutrients are gone after a growing season. From the beginning you will have to add sufficient Nitrogen regularly. How much nitrogen is unknown and too much nitrogen can negate the uptake of P and K in many plants. To sum it up coconut coir is a great seed starting medium and it can be used as a primary growing medium but I can just about guarantee that growing in straight coir and perlite will be challenging at best. You would be much better off by using it as a soil amendment @ 25% coir and 75% potting soil or garden soil.

I looked up Canna Coco plant medium. The company says it can be reused numerous times. With the coir I have used this is NOT the case. I have found that it can be used as an organic filler after use however.

 

[Organicfreak]

I will try to answer your original question. Coir is not a good long term growing medium. About one growing season and it loses its ability to retain moisture and nutrients and one must water much more often and nutrients leach away easily. Coir naturally has sufficient quantities of P and K but only trace amounts of N. It also has many trace minerals, usually in sufficient amounts for a growing season. All of these natural nutrients are gone after a growing season. From the beginning you will have to add sufficient Nitrogen regularly. How much nitrogen is unknown and too much nitrogen can negate the uptake of P and K in many plants. To sum it up coconut coir is a great seed starting medium and it can be used as a primary growing medium but I can just about guarantee that growing in straight coir and perlite will be challenging at best. You would be much better off by using it as a soil amendment @ 25% coir and 75% potting soil or garden soil.

I looked up Canna Coco plant medium. The company says it can be reused numerous times. With the coir I have used this is NOT the case. I have found that it can be used as an organic filler after use however.

Wow I didn't know any of that about coir at all. I assumed it had nothing in it at all. However that explains how my tomato plant slowly progressed even though I was only feeding it water.

The thing is I have seen the diffrence of growing in soil to coco. In coco the plants are much bigger and grow faster.

I was thinking of making a mix of either: 50% coco, 30% compost, 20% perlite or 50% coco 20% compost and 30% soil.

I was thinking of using organic compost and after research using the best quality top soil.

However I potted my strawberries in miracle grow straight from the bag this year and they have shown signs of brown spot and potentially fungus. I have seen that the top of the pot tends to get a green layer of mould on top. That has just totally put me off compost.

So i thought why not just use full coco and add the fertilisers etc regularlly but I'm guessing that would mean every feed.

 

[Chuck]

Wow I didn't know any of that about coir at all. I assumed it had nothing in it at all. However that explains how my tomato plant slowly progressed even though I was only feeding it water.

The thing is I have seen the diffrence of growing in soil to coco. In coco the plants are much bigger and grow faster.

I was thinking of making a mix of either: 50% coco, 30% compost, 20% perlite or 50% coco 20% compost and 30% soil.

I was thinking of using organic compost and after research using the best quality top soil.

However I potted my strawberries in miracle grow straight from the bag this year and they have shown signs of brown spot and potentially fungus. I have seen that the top of the pot tends to get a green layer of mould on top. That has just totally put me off compost.

So i thought why not just use full coco and add the fertilisers etc regularlly but I'm guessing that would mean every feed.

One does not want too much uncomposted material in the growing medium and although coir decomposes slowly too much of a good thing is not so good. The main reasons to use coir is aeration, moisture retention and its drainage capabilities. If I were to use coir as a base for my growing medium I would use 25% coir, 25% compost and 50% soil. When buying compost one gets what one pays for in most cases. Miracle Gro products are widely known for their less than stellar applications and I personally will not use anything made by MG, even their "organic" products. I don't believe you want to plant in straight coir as I believe that maintaining the proper nutrient levels would be about next to impossible. Remember that synthetic fertilizers directly feed the plant and that organic fertilizers do not. Organic fertilizers feed the soil microbes which in turn break down the organic materials present in the growing medium into a form that is available as uptake by the plants.

 

[Organicfreak]

One does not want too much uncomposted material in the growing medium and although coir decomposes slowly too much of a good thing is not so good. The main reasons to use coir is aeration, moisture retention and its drainage capabilities. If I were to use coir as a base for my growing medium I would use 25% coir, 25% compost and 50% soil. When buying compost one gets what one pays for in most cases. Miracle Gro products are widely known for their less than stellar applications and I personally will not use anything made by MG, even their "organic" products. I don't believe you want to plant in straight coir as I believe that maintaining the proper nutrient levels would be about next to impossible. Remember that synthetic fertilizers directly feed the plant and that organic fertilizers do not. Organic fertilizers feed the soil microbes which in turn break down the organic materials present in the growing medium into a form that is available as uptake by the plants.

Well I've only just started looking into things propally this year, I had known that about miracle grow, I certainly would not have used it, the only things I know up until jow about growing is what I learned from a friend who once grew cannabis, he growed it in coco and perlite mixed, nothing else. And then had a set of feed he would give like a few times a week on a schedule from the manufacturer. So I guess that's where my ideas came from, but if your saying it's best not to use too much then I think I'll take your advise.

So if I make a mix of compost, soil and coco. Do I still need to add a organic fertiliser or would I be ok with water for 1 growing season?

 

[Chuck]

Well I've only just started looking into things propally this year, I had known that about miracle grow, I certainly would not have used it, the only things I know up until jow about growing is what I learned from a friend who once grew cannabis, he growed it in coco and perlite mixed, nothing else. And then had a set of feed he would give like a few times a week on a schedule from the manufacturer. So I guess that's where my ideas came from, but if your saying it's best not to use too much then I think I'll take your advise.

So if I make a mix of compost, soil and coco. Do I still need to add a organic fertiliser or would I be ok with water for 1 growing season?

It will be good for numerous seasons. As it ages it will shrink in volume and when this happens just add a little more. A word to remember is that granular organic fertilizer lasts much longer in soil than liquid fertilizer and synthetic granular fertilizer.

 

[Chuck]

Well I've only just started looking into things propally this year, I had known that about miracle grow, I certainly would not have used it, the only things I know up until jow about growing is what I learned from a friend who once grew cannabis, he growed it in coco and perlite mixed, nothing else. And then had a set of feed he would give like a few times a week on a schedule from the manufacturer. So I guess that's where my ideas came from, but if your saying it's best not to use too much then I think I'll take your advise.

So if I make a mix of compost, soil and coco. Do I still need to add a organic fertiliser or would I be ok with water for 1 growing season?

No, you have to feed your plants no matter what. I feed my plants on average about every 2 weeks. But this depends on what kind of plant it is and the type of fertilizer I am using, granular or liquid.

 

[Organicfreak]

No, you have to feed your plants no matter what. I feed my plants on average about every 2 weeks. But this depends on what kind of plant it is and the type of fertilizer I am using, granular or liquid.

Now I'm learning! So no matter what is in the pot I need to add fertiliser, roughly every 2 weeks depending on plant and size etc... would this include during the vegetation stage aswell?

Reason I ask is the tomato plant feed I purchased says to give it to the plant once the 2nd set of truss Start forming. Until then I only gave it water.i started the feed a couple weeks late though.

My tomato plant was purchased from a shop so they must have had it potted in some compost but when it needed transplanting I only had coco and perlite available. So I just used that and only fed it water, I also topped the plant from the top.

Now my first tomatoes I thought were small but then someone told me it's a cherry tomato plant and that's how it grows. However the last 3 weeks I noticed I was supposed to feed it twice a week if needed. Since I've done that the tomatoes are alot bigger than cherry tomatoes but not as big as normal ones.

I had alot of skin splitting on stalks and tomatoes as I was only watering every 3 days, until the water came out the bottom. I then learnt that I needed to water it everyday, so now I just give it 1.5 litre everyday, during the hot spell it was 3 litres a day considering how fast coco dries out.

This is the plant now

 

[Oliver Buckle]

The old style wisdom was that in this country you need to top it out after four trusses of flowers and take out the side shoots to make the plant concentrate on the tomatoes. All those side shoots might be why the tomatoes are smaller than usual. People in America posting talk about growing the plant to what seem huge heights to me , and leaving the side shoots, but I think they have much better weather and a longer season than us.
However, that is the old style wisdom as I say, the weather appears to be changing and there are probably some better types of tomato on the market. I have been experimenting leaving more trusses on some of my plants and they have done pretty well. But I guess this is England, and where other countries have climates we have weather, so it may not be so good next year.
The plant doesn't seem to be suffering from a lack of anything though, plenty of growth and no yellowing leaves.

 

[Organicfreak]

The old style wisdom was that in this country you need to top it out after four trusses of flowers and take out the side shoots to make the plant concentrate on the tomatoes. All those side shoots might be why the tomatoes are smaller than usual. People in America posting talk about growing the plant to what seem huge heights to me , and leaving the side shoots, but I think they have much better weather and a longer season than us.
However, that is the old style wisdom as I say, the weather appears to be changing and there are probably some better types of tomato on the market. I have been experimenting leaving more trusses on some of my plants and they have done pretty well. But I guess this is England, and where other countries have climates we have weather, so it may not be so good next year.
The plant doesn't seem to be suffering from a lack of anything though, plenty of growth and no yellowing leaves.

Yeah well I did top the main branch before the plant went into flower stage. I left 4 branches from bottom, then the 2 branches from the top of the plant. Each plant has 4 trusses and then has been topped again. 1 branch has 5 but I just tipped it because I didn't want it growing too tall. Some of then tomatoes have only just started growing last week hence why some are small, however the ripen ones are a lil bigger than or same size as cherry tomatoes. I'll take a pic of some tmz.

I have noticed the tomatoes are splitting open after ripening. Does this mean they could be infested?

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Splitting is usually down to irregular watering.

 

[Organicfreak]

Splitting is usually down to irregular watering.

Yes I did read that online, but does that mean not enough water? Or too much?... I'm assuming it's not enough water hence why the skin dries and splits.

However, since I started watering more I noticed the skin split stopping but recently I took 2 or 3 tomatoes off the plant which were fully red and no signs of splitting.

1 day later, there split all the way down, and it's not a normal split, it actually fully open straight through to the centre.

 

[Chuck]

Yes I did read that online, but does that mean not enough water? Or too much?... I'm assuming it's not enough water hence why the skin dries and splits.

However, since I started watering more I noticed the skin split stopping but recently I took 2 or 3 tomatoes off the plant which were fully red and no signs of splitting.

1 day later, there split all the way down, and it's not a normal split, it actually fully open straight through to the centre.

Splitting and cracking is caused by too much moisture in the soil and the tomato absorbing water faster than its skin can grow. This mostly happens when a gardener grows his tomatoes in drier than optimum conditions and a big rain comes or he forget to turn off the water hose.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Right, the tomato can usually handle consistently too much or too little water so long as it isn't grossly so, it's irregularity that throws it.