[jondav]

Does anyone else find peat pots less than satisfactory. they seem to dry out too quickly,leaving the seedlings parched,i ve gone back to plastic

[alibean]

Please reconsider and try the coir pots  - think of those Irish bogs!     Alternatively you can make your own pots from old newspaper (there is a stickie on here somewhere), then simply pot them out with no root disturbance & they biodegrade v quickly

[andtiggertoo]

Yes jondav I have had exactly same thing have gone back to pots too.

[solway cropper]

I got some cos they were cheap and what a disaster. Either bone dry or waterlogged and everything I sowed into them just seemed to give up the ghost. Don't really know why I bothered as I have tons of plastic pots, etc.

[Trillium]

I won't even plant out the peat pots as they take literally years to break down and by then the plant roots are circling inside the pot 

[Dominic]

I've not had a problem with them myself.
I keep them standing in water through, so drying out isnt an issue.

I had assumed they broke down very quickly, but if they dont, can always give them a few slits with a carpet knife before planting them out this time

[JayG]

They're a pain and I've stopped using them, but when I did I either gently broke the side of the peat pot when planting to give the roots an easy escape route, or used scissors to cut one or more of the sides down if I thought the roots were a bit fragile.

Home-made paper pots are much easier for the roots to grow through but in both cases make sure the whole pot is buried otherwise the "wicking" effect will tend to dry the pot out and delay decomposition.

[Kristen]

I've given up on peat pots too. Removing them by scissors / tearing / etc. strikes me as disrupting the roots as much as if I had grown them in plastic pots and knocked them out for planting.

I'm also in the Newspaper Pot camp now. They are ready-to-rot by the time I plant out, and the top "collar" tends to be dry and stiff, and come away from the main, more moist, lower part of the pot, so I just pull that off when planting and push into the soil (being a lazy so-and-so!)

[jazzbyrd]

Do you mean peat pots because I haven't seen those around in ages most of the so called peat pots are made out of cardboard coloured to look like peat pots !!

Jazz

[Kristen]

Hahaha ... good point! So folk BUY paper pots instead of making Richy's Newspaper Pots eh?

Although Google seems to think that Peat Pots still exist (Link)

[sclarke624]

Mine went mouldy, another problem.

[Christine]

Marvellous isn't it? Here we are discussing whether to use peat pots from peat bogs or plastic pots which are the by product of the petro-chemical industry. Neither of which strike me as very environmentally friendly.

However, with the amount of plastic plant pots it is possible to get second hand .... well possibly the best option.

Saying that, peas straight from seed tray to ground like all the other gardeners on the site which only require trays. A lot of things go straight in the ground with me and it's only peas, beans and the cabbage/cauliflower/kale group of the brassica family that get the pots treatment. And they get reusable pots not peat pots of any sort.

[Kristen]

I don't know naught about it, but I though Peat cam from "sustainable" peat bogs - if so then I suppose not entirely bad, and my plastic pots last me for years and year s... so whilst not green, not "disposable" either.