Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: rowlandwells on February 19, 2020, 17:08
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do you use vermiculite when seed sowings and potting on and do you think in your opinion it helps seed germination when sowing do you mix the vermiculite with the compost or cover the seed with vermiculite
also do you use perlite when potting on [perlite standard] same method mixing with your compost
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Good evening rowlandwells, I do just as you say in the 1st paragraph.
I don't use perlite as it's a bit bright and tends to float about in any wind.
Cheers, Tony.
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I've mixed in and used it on top, depending on the seed size and how much covering it needs.
Vermiculite is organic and perlite is not, I think.
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I was once told that vermiculite was used for seed sowing
and perlite was used for potting on
I believe that both are inorganic (but I maybe wrong )
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They are made from different rock layers - volcanic rock for Perlite and Mica for Vermiculite, both inorganic.
Both explained here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKWtSxTsaas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKWtSxTsaas)
I use vermiculite for seed sowing and add it to hanging basket compost.
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Just to add, inorganic doesn't mean synthetic!
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I bought some vermiculite a couple of months back and have been experimenting with it in my seed sowing (i.e. sowing a few pots/modules with and without vermiculite at the same time). More often than not the none-vermiculite seeds germinate at the same time or even more quickly. However I imagine it is useful for seeds that germinate better when light is not excluded? I used it to cover my celeriac seeds and they are just starting to sprout now.
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we use vermiculite for seeding and perlite for potting on I don't know if its inorganic or not but that's not a problem for me we have found good results from using both vermiculite and perlite as its suggested to use