This turned out to be a great project to keep me busy while Mark was gone overseas. I worked for four days to plant new baby plants, repot older plants into the new soiless mixture. For dull background noise I rented some iritatingly boring movies- I knew that Mark wouldn't want to watch them and at least they were entertaining.
The mix was straight forward- two parts peat moss, one part vermiculite and one part perlite. This was a recipe from my african violet book. I put my plants in solo cups when they are small (3 oz), with one to two holes in the bottom. Using an old skewer I poked a 4 inch length of nylon (not cotton due to rotting) string into the bottom of each pot. First step done!
Next was setting up the water holders. After playing with some different methods I chose to arrange two pot bottoms under plastic needlework from the craft store. The holes in the needlework were large, but I cut out eight to ten evenly spaced holes to ensure I could get the wicks through to the water. My next issue was making sure that the needlework plastic didn't bow under the weight of the plants. So I cut down some solo cups and spaced them (about 4 for a 10inch diameter pot bottom) under the needlework plastic.
Now I just added the plants. I really like this method. I plan to fertilize about every other week- otherwise the plants will not get any nutrition. Definately makes my life easier and my plants more enjoyable.
