EveryThing You Need To Know About Soil Blocking In The UK - Without buying Special tools

Soil blocking has been around for a really long time and it's definitely been around a lot longer than plastic pots have been. However the soil blocker as we know it today was invented in the 1970s in England by Mike Ladbroke. The same design is used today and is actually sold by three sisters who are friends of the original family and they are also sold all over America. We're going to have a look at the different soil blockers that I have and how to use them and this really is my plea of trying to get as many people as we can in the UK using them. They are an absolutely wonderful technique however we will also go over how to start soil blocking without buying anything expensive and what compost and what mix to use and everything like that. These are the soil blockers that I have myself so I have the entire range for the smaller amount of production of soil blocks. They also produce other ones that do a larger quantity in one go and then there's also Bloom and Gray in the UK that are selling a sort of tabletop version which is a big wide one. I'll put a picture up on the screen and then you fill that one from the top and press it out whereas the ones from Ladbrokes are usually used on the floor. So the first one here is the Micro 20. This produces 20 tiny little sort of one centimetre blocks and they're perfect for popping into a takeaway tray or something like that and it's really handy to have the lid on to use with things like cut flowers or earlier plants that are in the house and you need that space at that point. And then we have the Mini 5. So this one produces five taller cubes and you have different sized dowelings that can go in them. This is the short doweling and then you can also get a longer doweling which is perfect for cuttings. This is the one I use the most and is suitable for pretty much everything you want to do. So if you're going to buy one that would be the one I would recommend. Then we have the Mini 4. So this one comes with little plugs like the ones that we just saw on the Mini 5. There are little round ones and then it also comes with these square ones which are the perfect size to pop these ones on. So it's a potting on system. One thing I would say is compared to the painted ones this one's fine because it's got plastic on the bottom and the zinc ones I would also definitely choose the zinc ones next time because you can see that the paint is coming off where the powder coating is not holding in the wet conditions. I have had this for quite a few years however and I use it all the time so if you're not using it very much you might find that they don't really get any damage. And then finally we have the Maxi one. So this is absolutely huge. They are reasonably expensive however they are really good if you're doing lots of larger plants. So this one has a large square in the bottom which is the size of one of these. So once again you can use these three as a potting on system. I will show you in a moment how I hand formed most of mine rather than using the amount of compost that this would require. Trays that are suitable for the three larger ones that I use would be these sort of half trays. These are just B&Q ones they're not overly expensive but they are reasonably strong and they're going to last you plenty of seasons. Then you can also use recycled plastic so this is just a bulk buy for like meats and things like that. You could also use mushroom punnet trays they're absolutely perfect. And then these are catering trays so these are the smaller catering trays. I'll pop the measurements up of them. These will perfectly fit six rows of the Mini 5 or five rows of the Mini 4. And then of the Maxi ones you can fit four of those on here. Lab Brooks do sell larger trays which would be suitable for the Maxi ones as well. The next thing we want to think about is our soil blocking mix. So you want something that's very fine and that has been sieved. This is a peat free mix and to make this I use 10 parts cocoa coir and I use a finer type. You can get ones that are a little bit more coarse. Then I use 15 parts of Grow Worm organic black gold compost. Their compost is absolutely beautiful and it doesn't require sieving for this job. It's peat free so perfect for what I need. That particular mix has worm castings in it. If you don't use a mix with worm castings then that can be helpful to add a little bit of that. To that I add a good scoop of perlite and then half a scoop of horticultural sand. If you can find it silver sand is absolutely perfect. This is going to help with drainage and things like that. If you don't want to actually make a mix up yourself then this is actually one that I've tried with just the organic black gold Grow Worm compost and they have actually taken really well and the seedlings are doing a perfect thing. Once you've got your mix the next stage is to wet the compost until it's the perfect consistency. This one the coir is a little bit more dry. I'm probably going to need to add a little bit more than I usually would. Just give it a good mix. It will also help if you can leave it for 10 minutes or so which will give it a chance just to absorb the water really well as well. Then what you want is a consistent mix that you can squeeze out and it holds together. It's not going to fall apart overly easily. That's absolutely perfect. As I said if you let the water sit for a little bit longer then that will also... All different types of compost that we buy particularly the peat-free ones are going to act slightly different in this so you will need to play around with your quantities of each of the different things that we're adding to this until you get that consistency that you're happy with and that the seeds are doing well in. I have previously used other peat-free compost and actually found that their mix is not consistent so what I've had to do is either really sieve them and found that I had more bits that wouldn't go through the sieve than would. So now I've found this black gold compost. I am definitely sticking to it. It's beautifully consistent and it works perfectly for this job. You can see this has now soaked up that water quite well and it's holding together pretty well as well. I don't tend to water all of the mix at one go. I'll start using it and then adding more water or more mix as I need to so I've got the perfect consistency rather than a load of really wet stuff left over at the end. Swish your soil blocker in some water before you get going and then just push that soil blocker into the mix and then all I do, this is like a house plant little spade set, just push that mix into the blocker and scrape around the edges. Push down as you pull the soil blocker up and keep pressing that until the soil blocks are released and rinse your soil blocker afterwards. There we go, that's the first one. So 20 of these can be made in literally seconds. Now I'm going up to the mini four version just to show you how they will pot on for you. So we're doing exactly the same, pushing it down, scraping it off and popping it into the tray. So into this tray you'd get three blocks, so eight to twelve and then we're simply going to take one of these blocks and pop that in. So once it has germinated and you're happy with that, that is your potting on system. They're not overly delicate at this point unless you were to water them lots from the top. And then for the maxi one, this one's a little bit more difficult to use in my opinion. You want to gather your compost up and then I just use something to push that down into each of the corners and then go back in to some more. Scrape off any of the excess and exactly the same as we have done before, place it into a tray, push down on the soil block and lift up. Keep going until it releases. There we go, it's quite a sizable soil block this one. I really don't use that one very often but perfect if you're wanting to pot on tomatoes or something like that. And then all three of those sit neatly into the pot, so it's a very quick way of potting on in that respect. I'm popping seeds into this one, so I'm just using the small little plug. This is the larger plug that you can add. To take them out you literally just squeeze the top, it will fall out and then you just push push them in to the top. It's as simple as that. These are perfect for beans, peas, squash, any larger seed and also cuttings. Once again I'm starting with a wet soil blocker and just pushing into this mix. While it might take a minute longer to make the soil blocks, when it comes to actually planting them you're literally just going to take them apart and pop them straight in the hole. There is no messing about with plastic or having things that you've got to try and juggle, it's so quick and easy the other end. So we are towards the end of July, so in these ones I'm going to sow some vibrant joy pak choy, some tatsoi and some old, these might not work, wongbok Chinese cabbage. So simply add two seeds to each cell. You can of course use one and I would definitely recommend that if you're using seeds that are quite expensive. I tend to do two because then that guarantees usually germination and the compost is more expensive usually than the seeds, so that makes sense to me. I sell my seedlings, so one of the reasons that I absolutely love this is that I don't need to send them away with a plastic pot, it's probably going to end up in landfill. The majority of the plastic pots that we have today are not recyclable either, so it just makes sense to me from that point of view. You'll also find that you don't have as much root disturbance when they're planted out, so the plants take much quicker than they would otherwise. You can usually find it much easier to spot slugs and things between the cells, whereas otherwise you would actually have to tip the plant out to try and find them in a normal system. The next thing you want to do is make sure that the seeds have got good contact with the soil, so to do that I've just got an old hairpin, the back of a pencil or something would work perfectly as well, and just tap them into the soil. Some people at this point will add vermiculite, I've never found that it's needed personally, or you could add a little bit of compost, but the majority of the seeds that we grow actually do well with the additional light that the soil blocks offer, and it gives you a great opportunity to actually see these seeds germinate and see how well they're doing as well. If the seeds did require darkness to germinate then I would just add some of this back over the top. That's that tray sown, they're watering right from the beginning, obviously these don't need watering now because they've got plenty of water in the actual soil block mix, but all you want to do is take a watering can and water underneath around the edge until it finishes soaking up. On this size block you'd be looking at doing that in this heat we've had, probably every day to every other day, however other times of the year or when it's just overcast then you will be absolutely fine with every sort of four days, but you will see them dry out, they really do show that they're drying out which makes it very easy. So these seedlings are obviously a little bit more mature, they've been sown for about a month now, so I can go in with the hose, no problem, just on a gentle setting and they'll be fine with water like that, and then once they actually do soak up all the water then that is perfectly fine for or I could again go in with a little watering can. So they're not as delicate as you think, especially after two days. For the tiny soil blocks, now these do dry out really quite quickly, if you're somebody who is away for work a lot or is not at home to water them daily, then I wouldn't advise this size personally. Once they are in their tray and they've got a lid on, then you're probably absolutely fine, but as soon as they germinate that lid needs to come off, depending on the heating in your house or the conditions outside you may find that they dry really fast. I don't tend to use them outside because they just dry so quickly that even once or twice a day I'm not managing to keep up with the watering. So the main time that I use these ones is in sort of January into February when the majority of the plants are inside and I want to the smaller amount of space to start lots of seeds, so each of these trays will start 20 seeds. The other time I use them is for older seeds where I'm not sure that they're going to germinate, so it's a great way to avoid using too much compost in that situation. This once again for the Mini 4 and the Mini 5, like I said a minute ago, they will take a few days before they do dry out unless we have extreme heat, so if you wanted to sow directly into this size then that would be a good one to go for, but I would personally suggest the Mini 5 as a perfect size for nearly all your needs and you can still fit a lot on one tray. The Maxi 1 size I usually water around sort of once or twice a week. I do tend to use these more in the house at the moment and then I hand form other sizes that I use outside. When pricking out seedlings we're using the deeper dowel and then we're just going to pop that seedling down in and cover them up. They can of course take a minute to recover and sulk a little bit, so don't panic if that happens, just give them time and pop them in the shade after you have potted them on. So if you wanted to give this method a go but you don't want to buy the quite expensive tools, they are expensive but I would say they will last you decades not years, so it's a good investment if you are happy with the technique. If before that you want to try them then I would just grab yourself a tray and some of the mix ready wet and made up. I'm just going to pop that into the tray and then grab yourself some sort of flat spatula just to form your little squares. I have seen people use like ice cube trays and things like that as well so pretty much you're down to your imagination, just anything that will form a shape will work. So the gap between each of the soil blocks and to help them actually air prune is very very small, so by just taking a spatula and going around your blocks and then cutting between the blocks you're going to achieve exactly the same thing. I'm just going to tidy up those edges again and there it is, just as simple as that and we can sow seeds directly into them as well. I've got some lettuce here, I'm going to pop around two seeds, that would be loads more than two, onto each block and then just take my little hairpin and just make sure those seeds have got good contact with the soil. Okay looks a little bit wet at the moment but that will dry out in the next couple of days and they'll germinate perfectly fine just like the others. We can also use the hand forming method to pot on the seedlings, so this is just a yarrow seedling and we're going to take a load of compost in our hand and pop that seedling on the top and then another handful over the top and we're just going to squeeze the water out until we've got a nice firm ball. It will help at this point to try and flatten the bottom off a little bit as well. You can also do that by just pressing it in to a hard surface and there we go, that's that potted on and that will grow on there perfectly. Here's another one that I've previously done, so this is a geranium seed that has actually lost some of its additional compost around the edge, so then we can just do exactly the same again and pot it on one more time. This does obviously get more difficult as it gets a bit larger but it's a really good way of avoiding using those pots. This is also a perfect technique to use with tomatoes where you actually want them a bit deeper in the compost which can be a little bit more difficult in soil box. When it comes to feeding we are going to look at feeding them a little bit sooner in soil blocks compared to in trays, so usually you'll be looking at four to six weeks depending if you're using a peat or peat-free compost. However, in these because we're using such a small amount of compost then we do need to think about feeding them a little bit sooner. A seaweed feed, something like Shropshire Seaweed Company is absolutely perfect for this or actually using a nettle feed that you've made is spot on as well. Another huge benefit to soil blocking is actually that you're not using as much compost as you would in trays or in litre pots and things like that so you are actually saving yourself a huge amount of money and hopefully therefore can buy that nicer quality compost than you maybe could otherwise. You can also of course say goodbye to those stacks and stacks of pots instead you're just going to have a nice tidy stack of trays so if you're anything like me and that really annoys you then this is the perfect option for that as well and when it comes to planting them out it's much easier, much less of a flush, you're just going to make that hole and pop them in. I do find that there's a significant benefit in the air pruning it means you're not going to get any pot-bound plants and then also obviously we don't have any root disturbance when we plant them out because they haven't gone round and round the pot they have access to get straight out get straight to work and you find that the plants do do really well very fast compared to pot grown plants. Obviously there is the element of no single use plastic and then the things that you do buy for them you could make wooden trays or you can buy good quality plastic trays as well to use with them. Another thing that I really do find helpful is actually how well the plants tolerate the heat so as long as you don't let them actually get completely dry then I find that they do really well and you don't end up with parts of the pot that are dry and then parts that are really over-watered in the center and then it can be difficult to deal with them. So during this heat they've been in the polytunnel a lot of my seedlings and they have done really well the only ones that haven't been is the brassicas and actually they're getting more leggy in the house than they ever would be outside because the flea beetles have just not had an option with that. Obviously there are the downsides as well so these tools can be a little bit more on the expensive side however once you have them they are fantastic quality and they will last you decades. You can of course just do them without any tools and you should get on perfectly fine with forming them by hand. There is no soil blocking compost mix available in the US they seem to have lots of options or bags that they can buy that are ready to go with soil blockers so if we can find a compost company that could actually make a mix that might make a huge difference to how practical this would be for a lot of people but I will say that the organic black gold mix that I am using is fantastic and has provided some really strong plants. With so many products on the market for gardeners they're usually very heavily plastic based or they're just not environmentally friendly and as gardeners I think hopefully that is one of the things that we are thinking about when we're growing our own food or flowers. So as much as there are downsides to soil blocking and they're not going to be perfect for everybody I hope that this video has given you a bit of an insight into the reasons why it might be a good thing to try and see if you can get used to. I will say it takes a while to get used to the differences of how soil blocking is going to work compared to using pots it can also until you get into the swing of things take that a little bit longer and if you haven't got your mix ready and everything set up ready to go of course it could be a bit of a palaver as well. If there's anything I've missed or any questions you've got then do let me know especially if you've used soil blockers before and not got on with them it's probably something very simple that can be tweaked and make that successful for you. This is a method that I've been using for quite some years now and I absolutely love it once you do get it right they go very right and they are really worth the effort.