[JackE]

Surfgirl--

For the second time, we do NOT start seedlings in peat pots. We germinate the seeds first and THEN transplant them to the peat pots. It would be ridiculous, if not impossible, to actually start them in peat pots because, among other reasons, we only have 8 sq ft of heating mat surface.

What's wrong with Miracle-Gro for a starting medium? It's readily available without freight costs, reasonable in price, always been disease-free, easy to handle, etc. I've never had a problem with it. A couple years ago, a large nursery down the road gave us a huge bale (5 or 6 hundred pounds) of their starting mix (for flowers). We didn't like the way it handled at all -too dry for one thing. We spread it in the field and bought MG

We buy 4000 Jiffy 2" peat pots for less than $150. Transplanting seedlings from the starting containers to the pots is fast and efficient - a matter of minutes to do a 50 pot tray and they are easy to transport and plant (we do tear the bottom out). It might be cheaper if we had reusable containers, but the convenience is worth it.

You plant a lot more than we do. We only do four plantings of 1000 each - and it's easier for the volunteers - one digs holes and sets-out the plants, one plants them and another follows with water. We're non-profit and have lots of free labor. We don't need a planting machine and bare root plugs, etc. It only takes a few hours for us to plant 1000 - and we're all retired with nothing better to do.

I wouldn't hesitate to recomment our system for any market gardener who only plants a few thousand. There's a grower over on another forum who plants more than 100K - all at one time. I'm quite sure he doesn't use peat pots LOL - all bareroot, which is the commercial way. Is that what you use - bareroot plugs?

Jack