Deluxe Seed-Starting and Soil-Block Mix

Your seedlings will get off to a great start in a loose, light planting mix like this recipe from Maine's master organic grower Eliot Coleman, author of The New Organic Grower. Use the mix in traditional plastic seedling flats, recycled yogurt cups, or other containers, or try making soil blocks—lightly compressed cubes of potting soil made with a special tool called a soil block-maker (see "Sources," beginning on page 308). Eliot says that the advantage of starting your seedlings in soil blocks is that "roots grow throughout the block of the soil up to the edges and then wait, poised to continue growing as soon as they're set into the garden, instead of circling around the walls and becoming rootbound as they do if grown in regular containers."

Ingredients and Supplies
10-quart bucket (for measuring)
1/2 cup lime
40 quarts peat moss
Dust mask
Wheelbarrow
1 buckets coarse sand or perlite
1 cup colloidal phosphate 1 cup greensand
1 cup blood meal (if you plan to use the
mix for growing larger transplants) I bucket soil
1 buckets very well-aged compost, sifted

Directions
1. Mix the lime into the peat moss. Wear a dust mask to avoid breathing dust from dry ingredients. A wheelbarrow is a good mixing container.
2. Combine the peat-lime mixture with the coarse sand or perlite, the colloidal phosphate, and the greensand, which provides potassium and trace elements. If you're making this mix for growing larger transplants, add the blood meal, too. Leave out the blood meal if you're making small soil blocks for germinating seeds—they don't need the extra nourishment.
3. Mix in the soil and the compost and stir all ingredients together thoroughly.
4. Fill your containers with the mix and tap them to eliminate any large air pockets. Then plant your seeds according to the packet directions and loosely cover the containers with plastic to keep the mix moist until they sprout.

Yield: About 1 bushels of planting mix

Note: To make soil blocks, Eliot recommends moistening the mix with about I part water to 3 parts mix. Spread the moistened mix on a hard surface at a depth that is thicker than the blocks you're making. Press the block-maker into the mix with a quick push, followed by a twisting motion when it hits the table surface. Then lift the block-maker, set it into your tray and eject the blocks with the plunger. You can set your finished soil blocks in regular plastic seedling flats or, Eliot suggests, try using plastic bread trays from a commercial bakery.


Word of Damping-Off
Moisten your planting mix before using a soil block maker—moist mix makes it easier to form blocks that will hold together.

The compost in Eliot Coleman's seed-starting mix will help prevent damping-off, a fungal disease that infects seedling stems and causes the young plants to fall over and die. Other steps to prevent damping-off include:
► Providing good air circulation. Run a small fan near the pots and don't plant seeds too thickly.
►Cover seeds with a layer of milled light sphagnum moss (often sold as "No Damp Off"). Studies have shown the moss contains compounds that inhibit damping-off.
►Give seedlings the brightest light you can. If you don't have a greenhouse or large south-facing window, use fluorescent shop lights and keep your plants just an inch or so below the tubes