The Great Container Mix Experiment - First Update ~ A Canberra Vegie Garden

Thursday, December 12, 2013

The Great Container Mix Experiment - First Update

8:30 PM 5-1-1 mix, banana chilli, coconut husk chips, fatalii, Great Container Mix Experiment, okra, potting mix, results, soil No comments

Well, I intended to write before now with a two week update, however life catches you and sometimes puts aside things like blogs! So today I present to you week 1 and 7 of the Great Container Mix Experiment.

Summary So Far

Back on October 28 I transplanted all my plants into their respective mixes for my experiment. Three mixes were used.

The first was my interpretation of Al 'Tapla's' 5-1-1 mix from the GardenWeb forums, made of pine bark fines, perlite and peat moss with added dolomitic lime (see here for original instructions). The second was plain potting mix and the third was a mixture made up of mainly coconut husk chips, but with other ingredients. All mixes had lime and some slow release fertiliser added. For a review see my previous posts on the topic.

Three types of plants were added; okra, banana chili and fatalii chilli peppers.

All plants were roughly the same size on planting, except for the banana chillis where one plant was significantly smaller than the other two, and was planted into the coconut husk chip mix.

I measured their heights at week 1 after planting, and today seven weeks later.

Throughout October and November there have been some very cold mornings in Canberra, and the okra in particular suffer. The Okra in the coconut husk mix dropped several leaves one morning and has not yet recovered, and this has seriously stunted its growth, since this event it has not grown at all, I am unsure why this plant was so badly affected, it may be due to the mix itself or the position of the plant, being the most exposed.

Growth below is measured in cms and measured to the top of the tallest leaf on each respective plant.

Surprising results!

In week 7 after transplanting there have been some very surprising results.

Whilst most plants are thriving, the plants in the ordinary potting mix ($2.50 per bag from the local hardware store) are performing extremely well, and even outperforming the other mixes in some cases.

Having a look at the percentage change in growth for each plant, shows little difference between the 5-1-1 mix and plain potting mix for the okra, whilst the plant in the coconut husk chip mix did not grow at all, actually losing some leaves due to cold.

The coconut husk chip mix greatly outperforms both 5-1-1 and plain potting mix for the Fatalii chilli peppers, with the 'coarse' 5-1-1 mix outperforming the plain potting mix.

The banana chilli show the most surprising results with plain potting mix outperforming both the 'coarse' 5-1-1 and the coconut husk mix by a significant margin, with the 5-1-1 fairing the worst.

Below is a chart showing the percentage change in cm growth for all plants in all mixes. Below this is a summary for each plant group.

Okra

For the okra plants, the plants in the 5-1-1 mix are performing the best, but only slightly better than plain potting mix. The okra in the coconut husk mix was affected by the cold morning temperatures more-so than the other two mixes dropping several leaves after a particularly cold morning, down to 2o C.

The Okra plant in the fine 5-1-1 mix, although putting on the most growth also almost uprooted itself, blowing over after a windy day, and required staking. This problem has not occurred for the other plants. A week after staking, its growth does not seem to have been disturbed.

Fatalii Chilli

The fatalii chilli have not been hurt by the cold and have grown steadily. In this instance the peppers in the coconut husk mix slightly outperform the other two mixes, with the plain potting mix fairing the poorest on total percentage growth, but not by much.

Banana Chili

The smaller banana chilli placed into the coconut husk chip mix has put on a bit of size, and percentage wise has outperformed the 5-1-1, and this plant seems more determined to fruit. The banana chilli in the plain potting mix is performing admirably, eclipsing both the other mixes by a long margin.