What kind of soil goes for vft

[Crunch]

I need to know what soil a VFT uses best or in other words to plant in please.

 

[Rubra]

A quote from the venus flytrap caresheet sticky at the top of the forum:

Quote[/b] ]SOIL : 50/50 peat moss and sand/perlite or pure peat moss or pure long fibered sphagnum moss . Make sure the sand is for horticulture purposes only but you can also used play sand and silica sand that has been well washed to rid of the fine particles . Live sphagum is not recomended because it can overgrow and cover your entire plant making it rot . Keep soil moist at all times . DO NOT USE AFRICAN VIOLET MIX

Peter

 

[Jason_In_CO]

That about covers it, I have also used pumice instead of sand or perlite.

 

[Crunch]

My Mom uses pure rain water and then some bottled waters. Can I use the same water please.

 

[zappafan]

Use rain water or distilled.

 

[The Griffin]

Or RO water. Your local supermarket might have a RO machine where you can get refills for 30 cents/gallon or so. For a small collection, that will last a long time.

Cheers,

Joe

 

[jimscott]

Just to add another voice, I work in a lab and I use deionized water.

 

[Crunch]

We made a mix of sfagnum peat moss and I picked the pieces of straw out before we added distilled bottle water and then we added perlite pieces and mixed them in to the mix.  We have a very nice soil to use now.  Our sand is frozen now.  We could not use the sand. Thank you very much we have soil good for vfts now.

 

[Jason Wong]

"sfagnum peat moss"? Sounds exotic. Where do I purchase it?

Man do I love typos...

What has to be said about soil should have already been said, just don't use anything with fertilizer in it. If you are unsure about the water then you could boil a kettlefull away and see if there is any white stuff left at the bottom. If there is a lot then I suggest you buy bottled or rain water. Or you could test it using a TDS meter, anything below 100ppm is fine.

Sorry I just had to say something...

 

[Clint]

i've made impulse buys in the winter time when my pre-mixed soil was frozen. i just pop in in the microwave.

 

[LauraZ5]

I think that was a phonetic spelling for sphagnum.

The premixed soil is in a garbage can and it is frozen solid by me. Oh how I tried to hack at it with a shovel but it didn't budge.  We also have a sandbox filled with great sand that could be rinsed but that's frozen solid and would need an ice pick too.  Another month or so for us and I'm thinking we should be able to get at our bins of soil.

 

[Jason Wong]

Quote[/b] (JustLikeAPill @ Mar. 06 2005,2:45)]i've made impulse buys in the winter time when my pre-mixed soil was frozen. i just pop in in the microwave.

Ah yes, "thawing soil in microwave" is another one of those things to add to the list of "what makes you a cper"...

 

[Goldslinger]

Canadian Sphagnum peat moss can be purchased at any greenhouse or Home Depot. I've seen the 'Schulz' brand at Walmart; probably the best. It will say peat moss on the bag, but read to make sure it's Sphagnum, and Canadian seems to be the most acidic.

 

[Crunch]

Thank you for advice very much.

 

[Trapper7]

What do you do with the seeds after you put them in that mixture of sand and peat?Do you have to put it in a bag and under a light?Or just put it iunder a light without the bag?I'm getting the sand and peat today and putting my seeds ontop but I don't know what to do after that,lol.Thanks for your help

*Trapper7*(Niki)

 

[LauraZ5]

This is what I do but best to ask for advice from those who have been at this longer than me. We create a little pocket in the corner of our seed tray. This way we can keep the medium moist without disturbing the seeds when we add water.  The seed tray is placed on heating pads that are set to low.  The soil temps seem to stay right around 80-83F this way but we had one heating pad that got a tad too hot so we placed dish towels on top of it until the soil temps were back down around 80. After that, an elcheapo goose neck lighting fixture with a decent bulb on a timer set to 15 hours a day directed at the tray.  

We have other trays that have holes drilled in the bottom that have seeds in them.  This actually works better in my opinion because you can set the tray right down into a larger tray and it sort of self waters from the bottom up.  Less chances of the seed ever drying out this way. If I had my choice, I'd do all seed this way.  

We have nice humidity in the growing area so we are not currently placing saran wrap over the tops of the seed trays.

 

[LauraZ5]

Oops, forgot to add that I have an oscillating fan over all the seeds that are germinating.

 

[FlytrapGurl]

Use either a sand/peat mix or a perlite/peat mix and distilled, RO, DI or rain water. I use a 2:1 mixture of Candadian sphagnum peat moss and pure perlite and distilled and rain water.

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Just a note as I was skimming I saw mention of BOTTLED WATER. You really should avoid using this terminology since any water in a bottle is bottled water. As mentioned purchased water in a bottle should say RO (reverse osmosis), Distilled, Deionized. Do not use Spring water for drinking or any other 'bottled water' that does specify what kind of water! These are not necessarily low in dissolved minerals!

Tony

 

[Crunch]

Thank you for responding to my question. I buy distilled water in big milk jugs really not just bottled so my plants are good.