Seed staring

Hemme323

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What dirt are people using to grow there plants for there torts. In there cages I have coco coir but I have read the you have to be careful what you grow your seeds in and do any of you use any kinda organic fertilizers? Any help would be great thank you
 

ZEROPILOT

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Grow your plants in a separate container with some quality bagged potting soil.
Then trim them and feed to your tortoise.
Plants will sprout easily from seeds. But to grow, they'll need sunlight or a "plant/grow" light from the hardware store.
Trying to grow plants in your enclosure will be futile.
 

Blackdog1714

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I have some wheat grass that I just threw into my enclosure and mixed into the fir bark. It is growing just fine
 

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Yvonne G

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I wanted to plant WINTER squash, so I found a small container in my junk pile and filled it with leaf litter, decomposed horse manure and dirt/sand from the driveway:

winter garden 2020 a.jpgwinter garden 2020 b.jpgWinter garden 2020 c.jpg

The different lettuces and kale sprouted almost immediately, but the squash only sprouted yesterday (3/5/20). So much for WINTER squash!

winter garden d.jpgwinter garden 2020 d.jpg

The nice thing about using dirt from the yard is I now have some edible weeds also in my winter garden!
 

Hemme323

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That’s a good idea I’ll try that I got a seed mix today that I was gonna plant for the greens
 

Hemme323

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Is this a good mix to grow for Ibera Greeks and Russians

image.jpg
 
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Yvonne G

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It should be ok.

Tyler at TortoiseSupply.com also sells a seed mix that's good for the mediterranean species.
 

Hemme323

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I’ll have to look it up a guy at work made this seed mix for me because he sells seed to farmers and deer plots
 

Hemme323

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Here are some pics of the mix
 

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Hemme323

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Can I use seed starter dirt or anything like that to grown my seeds in and when you buy a plant from the store why do people say you have to take them out of the dirt and re plant them. Here is what I’m doing

image.jpg
 

Yvonne G

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Quite a few nurseries use a systemic pesticide on their plants. This means the roots take the insect poison up into the plant and the plant then becomes toxic to the insects. If your tortoise eats these he might become sick and die. So you have to grow these plants for six months to a year to get all the poisons out of them before you can plant them for your tortoise.
 

Hemme323

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Perfect I under stand now I’ll just start stuff from new and can I use any kinda dirt to grow my seeds?
 

William Lee Kohler

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I wanted to plant WINTER squash, so I found a small container in my junk pile and filled it with leaf litter, decomposed horse manure and dirt/sand from the driveway:

View attachment 287436View attachment 287437View attachment 287438

The different lettuces and kale sprouted almost immediately, but the squash only sprouted yesterday (3/5/20). So much for WINTER squash!

View attachment 287440View attachment 287439

The nice thing about using dirt from the yard is I now have some edible weeds also in my winter garden!

No squash that I know of is freezing temp(Winter)hardy. Not so sure the name means it grows in the Winter.
 

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