Mouldy peat pots!

[fruitfly]

I've avoided using peat pots for a few years now because they always start getting mouldy. I was tempted to get them again in this form, 20 Jiffy Pot Strip Window Propagator with Transparent Dome, because of a much reduced price! However, I used jiffy pods to put the seeds in and then popped the pods in the compartments, without compost, but they have grown a white patchy mould on the inside surfaces anyway in the ten days since they got wet. I can't work out how they remain so popular, unless it's something I've done wrong but the pods themselves and other pods in other containers without peat pots don't develop the same problem.

[Green Aura]

I'm not sure it's anything to worry about - they're designed to be planted intact and rot. Mould is just part of that process. It's just a bit previous (as my mother would have said).

[fruitfly]

Doesn't it affect the seedlings and cause them to rot off, though - the general info is to partly the lid for aeration to prevent them dying from problems of dampness

[diggernotdreamer]

Perhaps you have made the pots too wet, not allowing them to dry out a bit between watering them. If you are getting mould to grow, it does show that you are providing the correct environment for fungi, i.e damp and cool, so you need to make sure these things are not too wet, are in a warm enough place and that you are providing air flow as well, so lifting the lid a bit during the day. The only time you should really soak these pots well is when you are going to put them in the ground as I have seen these come out of the ground intact with a dead plant inside them as they won't rehydrate properly if very dry. I prefer to use modules and compost in a propagator, I don't rate those peat pots

[fruitfly]

I had tilted the lid to one side once I saw germination but it is on a cold window sill. The peat pots are on the compost and the jiffy plugs standing free in the propagator - I won't be tempted by them again!

[bonniethomas06]

I don't use them for the same reason fruitfly.

Every Christmas someone buys me a 'make your own pot from newspaper' kit thingy, and every Christmas they go in the charity shop box - I did try it several times but each time they just acted as a fungi farm or fell apart when I tried to pick them up. It must be me but I just don't get it!

I recon buying the sturdy plastic pots, using them to death and then recycling them is probably better for the environment (if not the plants that dislike root disturbance). Some of my pots are still going 8 years on.

[Odsox]

The plants that dislike root disturbance, like parsnips, I sow in toilet roll tubes. Then plant out as soon as I see a root appear out of the bottom end. (Oooh )
I can't say that they have ever gone mouldy, and the reason I do that is because Irish woodlice love to browse of young parsnip leaves.

One thing you have to watch out for with peat pots and toilet roll tubes is to not let them dry out after you plant them, otherwise they set like concrete and won't allow the plant roots to swell. This really only applies to tunnel grown veg though.

[diggernotdreamer]

I make my own newspaper envelopes, they work really well, I will find pictures somewhere one day and post them up, toilet roll tubes also very good, the sort of mould that gets on the sides of them doesn't seem detrimental to the plants, I make sure they don't get too soggy by putting in pieces of capillary matting and a tongue of capillary matting into a tray of water, I did make a large investment in good deep 4" modules and root trainers a few years ago, so I agree with Bonnie, it is probably best to get good equipment that lasts for years

[Flo]

I got a batch of peat pots that didn't let the roots out one year. Lady in charge of community allotment who was a knowledgeable gardener had the same problem. We both said not again.